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“I’m not sure how to respond to that, except to say thank you. Although I will confess that I hate how young I look. I’m twenty-four and I’m still carded, every single time. It’s annoying.”
“I suppose it would be.” But he smiled.
The reality of what she’d just said, complaining about being carded, sank in and she shook her head. “That was really insensitive of me given what all these women go through.”
He frowned slightly. “I didn’t mean for you to feel bad about just talking, but what’s going on in my world is never far from my thoughts.”
His ever-present guilt heated up the chains. She touched them, surprised by their warmth. Everything was definitely improved and enhanced. She saw Marius, the dining area and kitchen, even her food as though in early evening light before the sun has gone down completely. Yet there wasn’t a single light on in the cave.
She seemed to be siphoning Marius’s power more than ever as well, a steady stream that helped her to feel strong and very much alive. Putting the chain on had done that for her and had also heightened her sense of what Marius felt from one moment to the next.
Right now, his thoughts had continued down the guilt-path and though she knew she was taking a risk, she felt compelled to address the issue. “Marius, I don’t mean to pry, but may I ask you a personal question?”
His gaze snapped back to hers, and she felt some of his tension dissipate. “Given that you’ve agreed to stay and that you put the chain on, I want you to think of it as your right to ask any question that enters your anthropological head.”
At that, she smiled. “You may want to take back that offer because if you haven’t figured it out already, I’m already prone to digging.”
He chuckled. “Yes, you are. But I’m also very serious. I owe you answers so long as you’re with me.”
Settling her fork on her plate, she leaned forward, holding his gaze. “And I, in turn, give you permission to refuse to answer any question that you find intrusive.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
She took a deep breath. “I want to understand the guilt. I’ve felt it coming from you almost from the first and it’s hard to take.” She touched the chain at her neck. “What comes through is oppressive. You were thinking about something just a moment ago. Can you tell me what it’s all about?”
At that, what had been a sense of goodwill between them dimmed as if a passing cloud had blocked out the sun. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ve seen a lot of things, done a lot of things. But what I’d been thinking about had to do with the last women I couldn’t save, the ones Daniel used to try to break me. I held their lives in my hands and couldn’t do anything about it.”
She knew he spoke the truth—that he really had been thinking about the women tortured and killed in front of him in the Dark Cave system. She could also sense there was more, but perhaps it was just as he’d said: He’d seen a lot of stuff in his life, more than she could possibly imagine. She didn’t feel it was right to press him further on the subject. “Thanks for telling me. I know this isn’t easy for you, either, this bond we share.”
“I don’t like talking about any of it. I don’t see the point.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that as well. But to change the subject, there is something I’m really curious about. I haven’t seen much of your world yet, but based on Daniel’s slavery enterprise, he must have accumulated an enormous amount of wealth. What does he spend it on? I take it it’s not on university endowments.”
Marius laughed outright. “I’ve never heard of him donating to anything.”
“So apparently he doesn’t believe basic PR is necessary in your world.”
“You’ve got that exactly right. He’s a sociopath and does what he wants when he wants. As for his wealth, I always supposed he plowed it back into the human clubs he owns, the places he’s set up around the world from which he plucks beautiful women for his Dark Cave operation.”
Shayna nodded but for reasons she couldn’t explain, she found this a less-than-satisfactory answer. Her reading had taught her that men of power rarely limited themselves to one endeavor and from what Marius had said, Daniel had already positioned himself to take over the vampire world merely by gaining control of the last extinction weapon. Had he done more than this?
Marius rose, took his plate and mug to the sink, and began cleaning up. Shayna shook her head once more, her thoughts shifting again to how different he was from Michelson. She couldn’t even call her former lover by his first name anymore. She remembered how excited she’d been the first time he’d asked her to call him Greg. That was the moment for her when she’d let herself fall the rest of the way in love with him. She believed, at least at the time, that he’d finally seen her not as a student, but as an adult.
Suddenly she realized Marius stood right next to her and he was upset. When she looked up at him, she gasped. “Your fangs are showing. Why?”
“What were you thinking about? Because it sure as hell wasn’t me.”
She rose to her feet, uncertain what to do: The chain at her neck vibrated with a new and very different layer of heat. She stared at the tips of his fangs and held her breath. He was furious, but it made no sense to her.
She touched the chains, which always seemed to help her zero in on what was going on. Then it dawned on her that Marius was jealous or something close to it. “I was thinking about my ex.”
“Well, you need to stop.”
“You can tell my thoughts were fixed on another man?”
“Yes. And that your feelings were tender this time, not like before.”
“But why the rage?” She really didn’t understand why her thoughts about Michelson had created such a violent reaction.
