She nodded. “I’m nearly a hundred. In a few more weeks, I’ll have met my first century.”
“I have another eight years.” He’d just turned ninety-two.
Riley studied him and gave a grim smile. “Do nachzehrers have traditions like this one? To get their vampires mated?”
“No. We are lucky to find mates. Some of the tribes believe in one mate for one vampire. But our kind believes we have many who could be a mate, just not a true-mate.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Between a mate and a true-mate?” His heartrate increased as he stared at her, lost in her bright blue eyes for a second. “Ah, well, a mate is a suitable woman for bearing one’s child. And we vampires only get one, you know. One mate, one child.”
Riley frowned. “But how is that possible? I mean, if not all of you have a kid, wouldn’t your numbers be getting steadily less? You should be on the verge of extinction after so long of only having one child. Especially because your kind does tend to get into violent spats and die.”
He sat, pondering her words. “That’s true.” And that brought up so many questions. Had any of the others ever wondered how vampires continued to be the top predators of the worlds when their numbers should have been in decline?
“Sorry to get off track. So what’s a true-mate?”
“A female who is so aligned with a vampire’s bloode that their hearts beat in sync. That their pairing is so perfect it’s rumored they might in fact produce more than one child, though no one has ever proven that to be anything but fanciful wishing.”
They stared at each other, and he heard her breathing increase, her heart stutter before following his beat.
And he thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d found his very own true-mate. That one in a million pairing every vampire secretly longed for.
A female treasured by her own kind, destined to give birth to future berserkers with a lycan by her side.
A true-mate he might have found too late.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Riley stared at Kraft,ensnared by his bright red eyes that seemed to glow as he stared at her.
All this talk of mates was getting her spazzy, because her heart raced and her body flooded with need. She’d been focused on his lips as he’d talked, wanting to taste them again. To feel him against her, his strength more than a match for her own.
“Any male child my mate has will be vampire,” he said, his voice thick.
She nodded.
“Females are sent away with their mothers. But even males lose their maternal parent, who leaves the clan after giving birth. We raise our young without feminine influence.” He stared into her eyes as if staring into her soul. Talk about intense.
It got her hot.
“Lycans raise our children in the pack. Surrounded by protection. Like the way you raise your young, protected by the whole clan.”
He nodded and looked down, as if he could see through her shins protecting her belly.
“At eight months, lycans shift into dire form. We give birth to pups then shift back a few weeks later. Our young shift with us. We often have more than one child at a time, though not always.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Vampires can also have multiple births. It’s very rare, but occasionally a female will give birth to twins. One of my Night Bloode kin, Duncan, has a father and uncle born fraternal twins. But we had none in my old clan.”
“Vampire twins. Interesting.”
They stared at each other in silence, the sexual tension growing.
Then Kraft stood and nodded to the hallway.
Riley frowned but followed him. “What?”
“I would like to speak to you in private.”
