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“Also, just so you know,” he informed her, “I could do this for hours.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.” He caressed her sex some more and was really into the sound she made. “Really.”
“Daniel—” she gasped.
Leaning back down to her breasts, he murmured, “Once more with feeling…”
SEVENTEEN
AGOOD FIFTY MILESto the west, in thesymphathColony, Blade was fifty feet beneath the ground and fully armed under his blood-red robe. His private quarters were in the least desirable part of the rabbit warren of subterranean chambers, and he did that on purpose. No one bothered him here.
Secrecy was necessary—and not just the kind that came with people not entering your private space. Mental secrecy was critical to him. His kind had no hesitation to violate a person’s mind, either because you had information or emotions up there they wanted or needed—or because they were bored and inclined to fuck with you.
If he was anywhere else in the Colony, his thoughts were locked down, his grid protected—and even here, he was careful not to become complacent.
Throwing part of the draping over his shoulder, he rechecked his hip holster. Two guns, backupammo, everything cleaned with an herb wash that hid any scents of metal, lead, blue oil. Not that this was all of his armaments. He had hidden a pack of explosives just off the Colony’s territory, and he would pick that up on his way.
He knew better than to bring C-4 anywhere near here.
Resettling the robing, he glanced around. His pallet was across the way on the tiled floor. Then he had his locked wardrobe, two trunks that were secured with screws that penetrated into the bedrock five feet down, and a bank of cabinets.
None of that really mattered, though.
Not like his young.
Pivoting around, he stared at the wall of glass cages. The reptile enclosures were stacked together, eight across the bottom, six running up vertically. Each one had several heat lamps, at least four inches of soil or sand for burrowing, a hiding spot or two, foliage, and a water dish.
Fifty-seven white scorpions, collected over his lifetime, interbred as appropriate, with their venom collected and stored.
They were the only young he would ever have, and he cherished them as a parent would, tending to not just their basic needs, but nurturing their growth and development—and mourning their passings as they came.
Narrowing his eyes, he felt a creeping paranoialatch on to the nape of his neck. Though he was not a male who was at a loss very often, his throat grew tight. If he died tonight, he did not know who would feed them, and he imagined, under the lamps, with no fresh water or food supply, they would die fast. Unlike scorpions in the wild, his all contained recessive genes that made them more potent, but also more vulnerable.
Trying to collect himself, he went over to the left. His favorite was the smallest of the collection, but then, in their kind, size was the inverse to deadly danger. The big ones had the weaker stings.
“You are the queen, aren’t you,” he whispered as he tapped the glass.
The predator on the other side of the pane shifted her body around and stared at him. She was beautiful, white as driven snow, and he’d always found her elegant, her segmented stinger curling up over her back, a fascinator that packed a punch, her pincers curving like a rococo sculpture.
“I’ll need you later. But not right now.”
As asymphath, he had to regulate himself if he went out into the world. Yes, he was part vampire, but unlike his sister, the evil side in him was more dispositive, and given the purpose that had animated him all these years, he’d had to have control as he worked with humans to accomplish his goals. The venom was the key for him. Back when the Princess had been alive, he had been in chargeof her stable of scorpions, feeding them, caring for them—and of course he’d been stung. That was how he’d learned that the poison had its benefits.
And he had used them.
Not tonight, however. He needed to be at his full potency as he went out on this mission that could well be his last—either because he was killed in action… or because the final lab was taken out.
“Be well,leelan—”
“You expecting a response from that thing?”
At the male voice, Blade smiled in a nasty fashion, and turned back around. “The King has arrived. To what do I owe this honor?”
Rehvenge stood in the doorway of the quarters, all amethyst eyes and majestic menace. The male, who was also a half-breed, had his own way of controlling his urges in mixed company, but he never, ever came down here medicated. And instead of the long mink coat and nice silk suit he sported in Caldwell, the male was wearing a white sheath that fell from a short collar down to his loafers. Mounted on the satin, in a pattern of swirls and straightaways, were countless rubies, their facets and pigeon-blood color catching the subtle light and magnifying it back in such a way that he appeared to gleam.
“People who talk to pets,” Rehvenge said as he entered without invitation, “have anthropomorphized animals—or in your case, arachnids, to be specific.”
