I can still smell her on me. The sweetness of her pussy, the cloying scent of her pleasure, the sharp tang of her fear.

My little mouse wants to pretend she isn’t afraid of me, but scent never lies.

When we reach Duval House, and I hand the BMW over to one of the errand girls, I guide Mouse into the house and down the hall.

Every vampire bound to the Duvals bows their head avoiding my eyes.

If we were still in 18th century France, they’d be on their fucking knees.

I take Mouse to the back of the house where a triple set of French doors leads to a courtyard and beyond it, the Anneliese. It’s a structure separate from the house, deeded to a human that lives ten states away. The only vampires invited inside are Damien, Jimmy, and myself.

Mouse will be safe there. For now.

“Jimmy.”

I only have to say her name once and she’s there.

There’s paint smudged across the front of her denim overalls. She smells like lavender spike oil and clove cigarettes.

It’s a scent that immediately reminds me of home where the rolling lavender fields were such a bright shade of purple, it made your eyes ache.

In the summer, when a storm blew in, you could smell lavender for miles.

“Hi.” Jimmy’s dark eyes shift from me to Mouse and back to me. A wrinkle appears between her brows and her gaze is asking.

Jimmy knows me better than almost anyone.

“Take my little mouse to the Anneliese. Show her to a shower and get her some clean clothes.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Mouse grabs me, her grip fraught with panic and my gut twists.

I like that she wants me by her side.

I like it too fucking much.

“I have to see my brother,” I tell her.

“The Anneliese will keep you safe. And so will Jimmy.” I give Jimmy a leveling look and Jimmy nods.

“Clean up, mouse.” I give her a cocky grin so she’ll think everything is all right. I like the smell of her fear. I do not like the bitterness of her worry. “I’ll be back soon.”

I wrap my hand around her neck—mine—and bring her close, and plant a kiss to her forehead.

The kiss is to show her I can be gentle. The hand around her throat is to show everyone else I have her under my control.

Duvals are not known for their gentle hands. I don’t want that to change.

I turn away but Jimmy stops me and lowers her voice. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I am.”

She tilts her head, narrows her eyes.

I’m not okay.

Not even fucking close.

There’s this building in my gut, a drumming beneath my ribs.

I have to destroy something. Anything at all. I have to feel the buzz of death so I can forget the terror of loving.

Someone.

I know how to take care of my little mouse. But I don’t know the first thing about how to keep her safe from me.

The considerable restraint I had to show not to tear her in two just an hour ago when my cock was buried in her—

Fucking hell.

Just the thought of her tight ass has me growing hard again.

I’m over two hundred years old. I know how to fucking control myself. Most of the time.

“Bran,” Jimmy says.

“Keep an eye on her. I mean it this time.” My voice is low, too low for Mouse to hear, but loud enough for a vampire to catch. “No other House business takes precedence over Jessie. Understood?”

“Of course.”

“And for the love of god, do not let Sky anywhere near her.”

“You have my word.”

I give her a nod and then disappear in search of my brother.

I find Damien on the balcony outside of his office sitting in one of the deck chairs. There’s a cigarette caught between his first two fingers and the neck of a bottle of bourbon strangled in the grip of his other hand.

Smoke curls around his face.

“You look like shit,” he says.

“Fuck you too.”

I relieve him of the bourbon and drink it straight from the bottle. The alcohol burns down my throat and sinks like an ember in my gut. It’s a struggle to get drunk these days, but I keep trying. I am a bottomless pit.

“Where’s the other MacMahon?” I ask after I hand him back the liquor.

I know he’ll want to keep Kelly safe, despite the fact he’s mad at her for the decisions she made. Damien has always held grudges with a firm hand. Just like his women.

Kelly surprised him. I think he’s still pissed about it.

“In the Anneliese,” he answers. “Yours?”

“Same.”

It’s ironic that the safest place in all of Midnight is named after the little sister we couldn’t save.

“How long before they counter attack?”

“Julian isn’t stupid.” Damien sets the bourbon on the stone floor. “But he’s not patient either. Her Pledge is tomorrow. He’ll act soon.”

I nod and then snap my fingers at him. He passes me the cigarette and I take a long pull of it, relishing the burn in my lungs. I exhale a stream of smoke. Somewhere on the Duval property, an animal breaks through the brush and the snuffing of a doe tells me it’s nothing to be alarmed over.

I pass the cigarette back. “Want to go to the city and murder something?”

I need more blood.

I need more violence to quell the rising unease in my gut.

“I could go for a hunt.”

I think my brother does too.

Damien takes one last hit and stubs out the cigarette in a wrought iron tray beside him. He smokes more than I do. A habit leftover from our days of smokey French alehouses back when murder was easier to get away with and we gorged ourselves on mayhem.

“Run or drive?” I ask.

He turns his face to the moonlight and a smile comes to his sharp mouth. “Let’s run.”  

There’s this stretch of coast along the northern edge of the city where little arrogant fuckers go to drink and fuck.

The land is soaked in blood.

Damien and I have done a lot of killing on that land.

By car, the drive would take a half hour from Midnight. By foot, we’re there in half that time.

We are silent as we enter the forest.

Near the waterline, a group of friends are deep in revelry and steeped in drink, circled around a stone firepit.

Damien and I have been hunting together for so long, we don’t need to speak or strategize.

He always goes left and I always go right.

The thrill of the hunt hits me in the sternum and the anticipation of it lifts the hair at the nape of my neck.

The rest of the world disappears. There is only the rapid beating of my heart and the scent of prey on the air.

I always pick off the one that looks the wiliest first. The muscle-bound idiots don’t move as fast and it’s always fun to watch their faces when the blood starts to spray.

I gorge myself on pandemonium.

The first two I kill are dead with nothing more than the sharp tear of my teeth. The third and the fourth I drain, drinking them back as their heart slows and their body slumps in my arms.

I drop them where they stand.

Damien and I leave the big idiot for last.

He’s just staring at us, unblinking, unmoving.

If this were a fair match, and we were human, he’d easily have fifty pounds of muscle on us both.

But this isn’t a fair fight. And we aren’t human.

When Damien and I start to circle him, the big guy summons some bravado and clenches his hands into fighting fists, loosens his knees.

Damien’s pace is slow and steady as he sucks the blood from his fingers like a wild thing let loose on a feast. His eyes are glowing blue in the flicker of the firelight.

We are both monsters, my brother and I. Damien’s always been better at keeping his hidden though. It only shows its face in the darkness, when no one is looking.

“Should we drain him?” Damien asks. “Or tear the dudebro limbs from his dudebro body one by one?”

The guy lets out a strangled little growl.

“There is nothing quite like the snap of sinew,” I say as blood drips from my fangs.

When Damien and I were first turned, I spent three nights vomiting nothing but blood.

Being turned is messy and brutal and it feels like your insides are trying to claw their way through your skin.

Half of all turned vampires don’t make it through the first week.

It’s not for the faint of heart.

But if you do survive, and if you survive the machinations of other Houses and the unpredictability of a supernatural life, then being a vampire as old as I am is about as close to godly as one can get.

And right now I feel like a fucking god.

Like any and all life rests in the cradle of my hand, so easy to break.

I am a fucking monster.

I don’t know if my little mouse can tame me or if I even want her to.

I run my tongue over my mouth, mop up the blood. It doesn’t taste as good as Mouse does.

Nothing ever does.

The muscle-bound fucker mewls some more, but as the air shifts and the leaves rustle, I’m no longer by the fireside. I’m back there on the side of the road, Jessie beneath me. And the thrill of the hunt is diminished beneath the memory of fucking my mouse, taking and taking.

How much can she give?

I am insatiable.

I am the insatiable monster who loves her.

I almost feel sorry for her.