Crouched in the snow, with his back to her, was a too-beautiful-to-be-real man. Raven hair curled around his ears, his cheekbones were sharp, and his olive skin shone in the moonlight.
Lying beneath him, arms feebly knocking at his chest, was thescreaming woman. Her faint cries were like mewls as the man feasted from her throat.
Leaves rustled as Therese stepped forward.
Brown eyes lined in silver rose and met hers.
“Please, please, please,” the woman begged, raising a hand in Therese’s direction. “Help me. He’s killing me.”
The man was still drinking from her throat.
Therese cocked her head and slowly approached the pair.
“Please,” the dying human whimpered.
Therese kneeled on the other side, running a hand down the woman’s tear-soaked cheek.
“Oh, you sweet little mortal,” the vampire chuckled softly. “Don’t you understand? This isourworld, and you’re nothing but food.”
Understanding dawned, and horror flickered in those brown eyes. “No!”
“Yes.” Moving with the speed of her kind, Therese slammed her fangs into the other side of the human’s throat.
At the first taste of warm blood, she groaned. She’d never get enough of this. Therese drank, pulling long draws of blood into her mouth.
More, more, more.
Strength flooded her body as she consumed the woman’s lifeblood. The human eventually fell silent, but Therese continued to drink until every last drop was gone. Only then did she withdraw her fangs, wipe the back of her hand against her mouth, and fall back on her heels.
The other vampire was watching her. Black eyes glimmered, crimson tipped his fangs, red dripped from his lips, and his mouth twisted into a smile.
“Therese,” he purred her name with the familiarity of a lover. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
She licked her lips, catching a stray crimson drop that threatened to fall on the snow. “Hello, Preston. It’s been a long time.”
He caught her hand, pressing a kiss to the center of her wrist. “Nearly two centuries, right?”
He’d always been such a flirt. That was how they’d ended up sharing a bed for several hundred years.
She shrugged, slipping her hand out of his grasp. “Give or take.”
Time had little meaning these days. What was a single year in the face of eternity?
Preston rose to his feet, his movements fluid, and held out his hand in offering.
“What brings you out this way?” In true Preston fashion, he didn’t let her answer before asking more questions. He’d always been the most curious of the bunch. “Did Isvana not provide you with enough land? Have you run out of food?”
When the gods first Made the Twelve, they granted each of them a vast plot of land. It contained more than enough humans for the vampires to live comfortably.
Therese slid her fingers into Preston’s, ignoring the bloody corpse between them. “No, my land is more than adequate, and my humans are plentiful enough.”
They bred like rabbits, and she fed whenever she pleased. Unlike some of her brethren, she didn’t keep a dedicated Source but instead enjoyed a variety of blood donors.
“Then what?”
She laughed. “Would you believe me if I said it was because I missed you?”
Preston leaned over the dead woman, rested his free hand on Therese’s hip, and brushed his lips against hers. She welcomed his kiss, and for a moment, she lost herself in the depth of the embrace.
