Page 118 of Hunted

Her tongue slips out to wet her bottom lip, and I nearly lose the thread.

I close the distance instead, lifting one hand to her jaw under the pretence of positioning her. The warmth of her skin under my palm is immediate, distracting in the most primitive way. My thumb drifts, deliberately or not, to the corner of her mouth, tracing the shape I have become too familiar with in too few days.

She squirms a little, breath catching. ‘Stop distracting me.’

I look down at her, at the stubbornness in her eyes and the flush in her face. ‘But you are so exquisite when distracted.’

Her glare should be withering but the effect is undermined by the way her pupils widen.

‘I mean it,’ she says, and there is a traitorous softness under the bite. ‘Keep going, please.’

My mouth twitches.

I accept the rebuke because she is correct, and because some part of me recognises what I was doing.

Delaying. Using her as a welcome interruption from truth.

‘You were right,’ I say, stepping back just enough to recover precision. ‘I felt something in the alley. Or rather, someone.’

Her frown returns instantly. ‘Who?’

‘My… brother.’

The word strikes her still. ‘You have a brother?’

‘We are blood brothers, not brothers by birth.’

‘What does that mean?’

I draw in a breath I do not need and continue unbuttoning my shirt, slower now as I choose the shape of this history.

‘There were five of us,’ I say. ‘Five men remade by the same hand. Bound by blood, origin and rites older than most standing empires. We were not born into one family or raised beneath one roof, but we were forged into brotherhood through transformation and sacred oath by our creator.’

‘Five,’ she says quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘And you all… what? Went your separate ways and built vampire kingdoms?’

Her phrasing is inelegant but her instinct is not wrong.

‘In time. At first there was survival, instruction, discipline, and the management of hunger before hunger managed us. We were not made to be feral, Eira. Our creator wanted a crown made of cities, so we were made to endure. To hold territory and govern what mortals imagine they understand about predators.’

Her brows draw together. ‘Made by who?’

I pause one fraction too long, examining the sensation moving through my gut before reluctantly naming it.

Dread.

‘Her name is irrelevant to this conversation and to very few who live to utter it.’

Eira catches everything. ‘Your creator,’ she says slowly. Then her eyes widen a fraction. ‘Your creator was a woman?’

The spike of jealousy that cuts through her scent is so sharp and immediate I almost smile.

It pleases me more than it should. ‘Yes.’

Her mouth tightens. She looks away, visibly disgruntled with herself for caring and with me for noticing. ‘Was she your… lover?’