David shot him a look. “I can run circlesaround you, boy,” he scoffed.
Aiden smiled innocently back at him. “We’llhave to find out.” He turned back to Ian. “Just sucks to have lostyou. I never thoughtyouwould settle down with only onewoman.”
“Neither did I,” Ian admitted. “But I’mhappy to have been taken down.”
“Ugh,” Aiden rolled his eyes. “You whippedguys are annoying.”
“I am not whipped,” Ian enunciatedcarefully.
“He doesn’t understand,” Ethan replied.“Maybe when he hits maturity things will change for him, hopefullynot.”
Ian glanced at Paige again before steppingcloser to his older brother. “Things changed for you after youstopped aging?” he demanded.
Ethan’s eyes were shrewd as they ran overhim from head to toe. “Yes.”
Ian’s mind spun as he tried to process thisinformation. He knew his sexual impulses had kicked into overdriveafter he’d stopped aging, but he’d never seen Ethan with a girl,until Emma. “I don’t understand, you locked yourself away fromhumans. You never willingly associated with them, until Emma.”
Ethan’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Ofcourse not, I wanted to kill every one of them.”
“It shows itself in different ways, with allof us.”
Ian had been so focused on Ethan, thebrother he’d always considered somewhat of a hermit, that he hadn’trealized Ronan had approached them until he spoke.The man wouldmake a ghost sound noisy, Ian decided. Ian glanced at Ethanbefore taking a step closer to his brother and David. Ronan may notbe an outright menace to them, but any one stronger than them, wassomeone he would be on guard around.
“What does?” Ethan inquired.
“The beast, the demon, whatever it is youcall what lurks within all vampires. In purebreds, it’s strongerand more incessant. Upon reaching maturation it becomes thisinsatiable, clawing thing inside of us that is only eased byfinding our mates or by losing ourselves to the pleasure of thekill. In each of us, this insatiable hunger shows itself indifferent ways. Some of us seek out pain,” Ronan replied.
Beside him, Ian felt a ripple go throughEthan that caused his eyes to dart toward him. They were all soclose to each other, would kill for each other, yet they’d keptthis change within them hidden from each other.
“Others of us covet copious amounts ofblood,” Ronan continued. “Some cannot have enough sex, some lockthemselves away from humans, and others give in and kill in orderto make it stop. In all purebred males, maturity means threethings, they stop aging, their power increases and continues to doso as they age, and they hunger for things so endlessly it nearlydrives them mad.”
“That’s something to look forward to,” Aidenmuttered.
“What you will yearn for most after maturityis in you now,” Ronan replied. “You already know you have apenchant for one thing over another, and it doesn’t have to be onlyone thing. Many experience a combination of heightened urges, butthere will be one that is more dominant than the others.”
“What of the purebred women?” Davidasked.
Ronan shook his head. “It’s not as prevalentin them. They do not feel the drive in the same way the mendo.”
“Why not?”
Ronan held his hands out before him, hisstrangely colored eyes appearing redder in the fading sunlight.“Why do men think one thing, and women another? I’ve been on thisearth over a thousand years, and women are still a complete mysteryto me. The purebred women still exhibit some sort of change, it’sjust not as intense or dominant as it is within the men.”
“Issy withdrew,” Ethan murmured. “Wewithdrew together.” Ronan’s eyes pierced him; his gaze flickeredtoward the tattoo on his arm. Ian could hear Ethan’s teeth grindingbeside him. “You’re over a thousand years old, how have you keptyourself in control for so long?”
“I haven’t, I’m a bloodthirsty killer,”Ronan replied as nonchalantly as if he’d said please pass the salt.Uneasiness turned in Ian’s stomach. “I’ve just turned my impulsesinto hunting down those of us that murder innocents, so has myteam. We focus on destroying the most powerful of us who becomemurderers. Killing vampires makes us stronger; they are also a morethrilling hunt than humans.
“Unfortunately, that means we sometimes haveto hunt the members of my team who give in and turn to thedarkness. The lure of the taboo, and the insistent call of theimpulses within us, is sometimes too strong for even the strongestof us to refuse, no matter how old and powerful we become, and theygive in. As we age, it becomes more difficult to refuse ourimpulses. Many become tired of fighting it and some don’t bother tofight it at all. Vampires who are turned don’t feel the urges withthe same intensity born vampires do. Some turned barely feel it atall, and others,” he flicked a pointed glance at Brian. “Feel itmore.”
“What if a vampire who becomes a killerfinds their mate?” Aiden inquired.
“By then it’s too late. Once you give in andstart to destroy those who don’t deserve it, you give your soulover to the demon lurking within you. No monster is capable oflove.”
“Way to successfully bring down the bachelorparty.” Ian elbowed Aiden in the side for his comment; his brotherglowered back at him. “What? You and Ethan have found your mates,you’re all set. Yesterday I was at college, hooking up with ahottie, enjoying a Mai Tai, and now I’m being told that when I stopaging, and my power increases, the shit is going to hit the faninside of me.”
“You’ll survive it,” Ethan said.
“What if it takes me centuries to find mymate? Would you have survived centuries? And honestly I much preferthe single life to the taken one. I had plans, and they didn’tinclude a family for at least another fifty years, preferablylonger.”
