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He moved his hand to her waist, but he couldn’t bring himself to drop the dress. His hand had touched her flesh, and now it refused to be denied that heady pleasure.

“There are those who aim to harm us, to destroy our kind—”

“Other vampires?”

“Yes, but I speak mostly of the Cheld.”

She frowned. “I thought you’ve dedicated your life to protecting the Cheld?”

His stomach knotted at her words. “I did.”

If she noticed the past tense, she didn’t comment.

“Many of the Cheld use their abilities to help vampires and humans, but there are those who cannot be saved. A faction who choose to become hunters, despite our attempts to help them. They take our protection to cloak themselves . . . and then they dedicate their lives to eradicating every last one of us. They call themselves the Sect.”

Cursing himself, again, for a fool, he continued. She had to know. Silently apologizing to Alessandra who evidently hadn’t told her in order to keep Toni from worrying, he forged ahead.

“Wherever we go, we are never truly safe. Not completely.”

While he spoke, she stared at his mouth. “You were made to kill,” she said softly.

“We drink blood to survive,” he amended.

“How often do you need to feed?”

“Myself? Not as often as most. Every few weeks. Perhaps once a month.”

“Does it hurt the victim?”

“No. It doesn’t hurt.”

Disentangling her arms and stepping back, Toni lifted her wrist to him. The sight of her standing there, offering herself to him, touched something deep inside him.

“Show me.”

He forced himself to shake his head.

“You’re trying to scare me away. So go ahead. Do it.”

“I’m not trying to scare you away. Just the opposite. I want you to understand what you’re getting yourself into with me.”

She wriggled her wrist in his face.

“So show me.”

Though he didn’t need to feed, his cock twitched at the mere thought of sinking his teeth into the woman he’d wanted since the moment they met.

He waited for her to change her mind.

The way she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders assured him she would not. If there was one thing he’d learned about women in seven centuries, it was not to tell them what they did and did not want.

He took her slender wrist in his hand and lowered it.

“Not there.”

With one hand still on the bare flesh of her back, he used the other one to brush aside her hair from her shoulder, revealing that swanlike neck.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “But Alessandra said—”