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“Sweet Goddess, I’m so sorry. A thousand apologies. Do you want me to summon one of the fae healers?”
But at that, she smiled. “No. I’ll be fine in an hour or so, I was just surprised. You’ve never been like that before. Was it the woman, the human?”
He waited for her to say more, to mention that Samantha had fallen into a vision, but she didn’t say anything. And he really didn’t want to reveal the truth to her. “No, I was stupid. I let my blood starvation reach a critical level.”
“Stupid is right when you know we’re all here to serve you.”
“I know that.” His doneuses were a real blessing in his life. Early on he’d used them as much for sex as for blood, but the combination had caused too many bonding issues so that in recent decades he had a non-involvement policy with the women who donated. “How’s your mother?”
“She’s fine. One of the fae healers gave her a poultice and the ulcers on her legs went away within a week.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it. Do you want to go back to the prave? I’ll take you back if you like.”
“No, that’s okay.” She chuckled softly and once more rubbed her neck. “I think for now I’d better head home.”
“Oh, Goddess, I’m sorry.”
“Stuff it, Ethan. You’re a good guy. We all think so and you’re allowed to make a mistake now and then.”
With that, she headed north, away from Shreveport and toward Bergisson. He turned and glanced through the trees, noting that his Guard had returned and now hovered above the ground at the edge of the parking lot, waiting for him.
Time to go kick some Invictus ass.
But as he sped in their direction, he wavered slightly and almost tipped into the pavement which would have sent him crashing into a nearby Ford truck. At the last second, he righted himself.
Well, that had never happened before.
As he landed close to his Guard, Finn called out, “What the hell was that?”
“I think I took the draw too quick.”
A chuckle went through the men. What vampire hadn’t been a little tipsy after slaking a blood-thirst too fast?
Of course the trouble was, Ethan knew that wasn’t the real problem at all.
The real problem was that his blood rose had arrived in a half-human woman who didn’t know she was part fae, and whose blood would finally ease his starvation, but for many reasons she was off-limits.
When he’d handed out orders for the next few hours, he took Finn aside and told him about Samantha. He needed at least one other person in on his current conundrum.
“What do you plan to do?” Finn kept his voice quiet. “I mean, will you take her on since she could resolve the starvation?”
“That she could take care of my blood-needs permanently is the only part of the equation that tempts me. The rest has the appearance of a nightmare waiting to happen. I felt her power, Finn, she’s on Vojalie’s level, or if not hers then some of the more powerful fae in the Bergisson Guild.”
Finn whistled. “And she has no idea.”
“Well, she does now, but she seemed pretty shocked when she left here.”
Finn’s phone rang, one of the Guard lieutenants informing him of an Invictus-pair sighting not far from Caldwell in the northwest, about thirty miles from the realm’s wastelands. “Are you coming with?”
Ethan frowned. For one of the few times in his career, he didn’t have a quick answer. Something about Samantha held him back. He shook his head. “I think I need to sort things out here first. You get the Guard on this, but if you need me, call right away. In the meantime, give me updates.”
“You know I will.”
As he watched Finn, and the rest of the Guard take to the air, he felt the familiar pull to be with them, his brothers in arms, to be fighting alongside them, which only made him resent even more that Samantha existed.
What a f**king mess.
Chapter Two
As Samantha drove home, she kept shaking her head like she needed to clear her ears of water. What she’d learned tonight had set her on her heels and she could hardly make sense of it all. On some level, she felt like she moved through a dream and that maybe the events at the prave had never really happened.
She hadn’t imagined the vision, though, because it existed inside her now like a living, breathing thing. She could feel the images moving near the edges of her mind and that if she wanted, she could experience the whole thing all over again.
She knew from her studies of the realm-world that very powerful fae women were known to have visions. She stopped at a stoplight, watched it turn green but only stepped on the gas when the car behind her honked.
She needed to pay better attention to the road.
She kept her thoughts simpler.
She’d had a vision; she wouldn’t deny the truth.
But something else became clear as she turned down her street: The vision was fae.
She’d had a fae vision.
Which meant…
She was part fae.
And the fae part of her dominated the human part.
Pulling into her driveway, she sat in her car for several long, astonished minutes.
Part fae?
But how could that be?
She got of the car and turned to stare up at a clear sky with a full moon. The April Louisiana night air was soft on her skin, not cloying like it would become in just a few more weeks.
The hour had to be past midnight.
Time even felt different to her now. She knew the hour and the minute: 12:11.
She pulled out her cell: 12:11.
How did she know the time like that?
She shook her head yet again as she made her way to the front door of what was once her beloved grandmother’s home, now hers. She loved the small old house, built a long time ago. It grew into its creaking floors and musty smell, all familiar like songs that had been sung but kept echoing down each hall.
Fae.
And a blood rose.
Her heart seemed to lumber in her chest now, and when she touched her neck, the vein rose. She could feel it beneath her skin, rising for what? As though she didn’t know. Rising for a sharp pair of fangs that belonged to a vampire.
A specific vampire.
A mastyr vampire, powerful, built, gorgeous, and weighed down with responsibility.
That’s what she felt when she thought of Mastyr Ethan, that he bore the weight of Bergisson Realm like a stone strapped to his back.
The moment images of him moved through her mind, however, her heart began to beat really hard, like nothing she’d ever known before. She dismissed the thought that she might be having a heart attack since her newly discovered faeness knew better. A need swept over her, to reach out to Ethan, to leave her house, to enter Bergisson, to find him and to feed him, just like in the vision, to offer up her blood as his blood rose.
