“No, human. I ran.”
Bronwyn shrugged as though this were no big deal. “Like I said, the lifestyle doesn’t suit everyone.”
“No,” Dillon growled, thrusting down her paper and eyeing the vampire across from her. “The prison time doesn’t suit everyone.”
A muscle in Bronwyn’s cheek twitched, but she kept her cool. “For some, it can feel that way. For others, it’s a wonderful, happy, complete existence.”
Studying human behavior had always been a passion for Sara, but this—studying vampire behavior and vampire cultural differences—was thrilling, to say the least. She sat forward, looking from one veana to the other. “So the ones who leave the credenti, can they exist among humans and not be detected?”
Bronwyn nodded. “For a while, if they’re discreet in their appetite.”
“How long is ‘a while’?”
“When morpho hits for a paven and meta occurs for a veana, one is forever changed, and living among humans becomes impossible.”
Sara sat forward in her chair. “Why?”
“A veana goes through meta at fifty years, far earlier than a paven goes through morpho, and though she can still remain in sunlight, the urge to find her true mate and grow large with swell is intense. It’s wise for her to remove herself from human male company and return to the safety of her credenti. For a paven,” she continued, “sunlight becomes the enemy of the body and like the veana, the need to find his true mate becomes impossible to deny. He can become rather like a hunter in his quest to find his veana.”
Morpho was what Alexander had been through at her door, Sara mused. That’s what she’d saved him from, the burns and the pain. So if one followed the other, that would mean he was on the hunt for his true mate, or soon would be. She looked at Bronwyn. “Are you, or members of the breed, tempted by human blood?”
Holding a plate of seeds and brown plantlike cakes out toward Sara, Bronwyn said, “We don’t crave human blood, only the blood of other vampires.”
Her eyes trained on Bronwyn, Dillon snorted again.
Sara declined the plate with thanks. “So you learn to suppress yourself and the need for blood until your true mate comes along.”
Bronwyn nodded. “Exactly.”
“What if you can’t?” Sara asked.
“There are consequences to every choice, aren’t there?” Bronwyn’s gaze suddenly shifted over to Dillon, whose jaw looked so tightly clenched Sara worried that she’d crack a tooth, or a fang.
Dillon stood then, said caustically, “I think we’re done talking about this.”
“Why’s that?” Sara asked innocently.
Dillon glared down at her. “Thought you were hungry, human.”
Sara’s brow lifted. “You gonna make me something, vampire?”
It was over in a split second, but Sara could’ve sworn she’d seen Dillon smile. “If you like your steak tartare, yeah,” she said dryly. “If not, I’d better go out and get you something before the boss gets back.”
Bronwyn interjected, “I forgot to ask before, but why are you here, Dillon? I’d heard you were helping guard a human politician or something.”
“I took a short break to help out Alexander, protect his lady of the moment here.” She nodded toward Sara.
Bronwyn stopped eating her plant cake and looked over at Sara, this time like a bird inspecting a juicy little insect. As a slow dawn of understanding came across her face, a low, feral growl emanated from the back of her throat. She said nothing, but her eyes changed from their benign and beautiful pale green to a raging sea of emerald.
Truly afraid, Sara sat back in her chair. Coming to stand beside her, Dillon chuckled humorlessly. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” she asked, her brow lifted as she looked at Bronwyn. “Remember, Miss Kettler, we’re all responsible for our choices.”
Before Bronwyn could say a word in response, the doors to the living room burst open and a chorus of loud male voices entered. All three females turned to see Alexander, Nicholas, and Lucian stalk in and head straight for the leather club chairs, Alexander leaning on Nicholas for support.
“Get blood on my pool table, Duro,” Lucian snarled playfully at Alexander, “and I’ll take a shot at that other shoulder of yours.”
“Blood should be the least of your worries in regards to that table,” Alexander returned dryly as a worried and anxious Evans fussed around him.
Nicholas chuckled, dropped Alexander onto one of the chairs. “True enough. If I had a pint for every time you scratched and pocketed the eight, I’d be a satiated paven.”
“Yes, Luca—you need to learn to control your balls,” Alexander declared, causing all three brothers to break into laughter.
“What happened?” Sara asked, running over to them, Dillon behind her.
Alexander sat in one of the club chairs, his shirt off, a thick towel pressed against one massive shoulder. For Sara, it was impossible not to stare at the impressive cords of muscle that stretched taut against his smooth skin. Never in her life had she seen such perfect masculine beauty. He captured her gaze then and his eyes were soft with pleasure and his full mouth curved into a smile. Sara’s heart fluttered in her chest and she itched to run at him and jump in his lap.
“We went in ready to play and win an easy game,” Nicholas was saying. “But the rules have changed.”
“Who did this?” Dillon demanded. “Ethan Dare?”
Behind Sara, a gasp sounded. Bronwyn. Sara tore her gaze from Alexander and raised a brow at Dillon. “Who’s Ethan Dare?”
The veana’s eyes narrowed. “A piece-of-shit vampire with a cause.”
“An enemy of the species,” Bronwyn added, coming to stand beside Dillon, her tone thick with unmasked revulsion. “An Impure who wants to destroy the Eternal Breed, turn it from purity to poison.”
“A little late for that,” Lucian muttered under his breath, unloading his weapons and tossing them on the pool table.
Ignoring his brother, Nicholas turned to Sara and said, “Your skinny attacker was with him.”
Shock and fear rippled through Sara. “You saw Tom? What was he doing there?”
“We weren’t sure at first, but it looks like he’s become a recruit for Dare.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sara argued. “How could that happen?”
Nicholas shrugged. “Not sure. But he is with Dare and”—he ventured a worried glance at Alexander, then returned to Sara—“he’s no longer fully human.”
Sara’s eyes shifted to Alexander. “Talk to me.”
“There is vampire blood in him,” Alexander said softly. “And there is vengeance. We scented it. Which means you are in far more danger than I thought. Either Dillon or myself will be with you 24-7.”
Sara was too shocked to immediately protest, but she knew there would be a discussion later. She wasn’t about to be controlled by Alexander or by the psychotic actions of her ex-patient.
“Oh, shit,” Nicholas muttered, nodding at Alexander’s shoulder. “It’s bleeding out again.”
Following his line of vision, Sara gasped. “Oh my God!” The towel that Evans now held to Alexander’s wound looked like an overturned can of red paint, fingers of blood spreading in every direction.
Alexander glanced down, yanked off the towel. “More towels, Evans.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.” The old servant was off like a shot.
Sara stared at the bullet wound carved into Alexander’s powerfully muscled shoulder, and the blood, a good deal of it leaking from the hole. She’d seen plenty of blood in her time, worked on the brains of cadavers in med school, and yet seeing Alexander with a hole in his body made her sway on her feet.
“Hey there,” Alexander said to her gently, “don’t go soft now.”