“Not today,” he repeated.

“Very well, but if you change your mind . . .”

Aden remained silent until he heard the sound of her bare feet padding softly away. Sometimes he let her rub the oils in, because it did help, softening the scar tissue and keeping it as flexible as it was ever going to be.

But he didn’t trust himself tonight. He was filled with such rage. It was a hot coal in his belly, burning him from the inside out. Was this to be the rest of his life? What would happen when he grew too old to service the women, too old for even the fat man to enjoy beating? Would his mistress turn him out on the streets to beg?

He began to pace, his long legs needing no more than three strides to travel the length of the room. With every step he took, his anger grew. What purpose was there in continuing this farce? Why not end it? He knew the herbs, a simple cup of tea, sweetened with honey to blunt the taste. One of his ladies had brought him a gift of tiny date cakes, baked with cinnamon and sesame, prepared by her cook who was a slave like him. But they would taste all the better for that, and he could eat them all with his final cup of tea. There would be no point in saving them any longer, no point in hoarding them like the only treasures of his miserable life.

He paced some more, back and forth, nursing his rage, his feelings of betrayal, until an idea began to take shape. Yes, he would end this wretched existence, but he wouldn’t go alone.

Crossing to the cheap wooden box where he stored his few possessions, he dug down until he unearthed yet another gift from a customer, this one far more useful than a few date cakes. It was a blade, forbidden for one such as he to possess. But the lady had given it to him not because it was a weapon, but because it was beautiful. It was meant to be a woman’s table knife, small and adorned with jewels. When she’d given it to him, it had been as dull as a child’s toy, but no longer. He’d sharpened it over time, hiding it by day and working late at night, until the edge now gleamed in the low light. He pressed it gently against his fingertip and watched a line of blood well up.

He smiled. It would do.

He didn’t bother dressing for the occasion. None of his clothes were any better than the loose trousers he was wearing. And it didn’t matter anyway.

Palming the blade, he pulled open the flimsy door which was for his clients’ privacy, not his own, and strode down the short hallway to the stairs, ascending swiftly to the third floor, with its cool, tiled hallway, where his mistress lived in far greater splendor that any of the slaves who made such opulence possible. He glanced through the small window near her door and saw that night had descended. He could hear the crowds outside, the devout whose fast ended with the setting sun, and who would now gorge themselves in anticipation of doing it all over again tomorrow.

He didn’t bother knocking on his mistress’s door. He knew she’d be breaking her own fast, sitting down to a finer meal than anyone else in the house would enjoy. Once upon a time, he’d have been dining with her, but she no longer invited him.

It didn’t matter. Tonight, he was inviting himself.

He shoved the door open, ignoring her squawk of surprise. “How dare—” Her outraged protest was cut off, quite literally, by his blade against her throat.

She stared up at him in shock, her dark gaze wet with fear. “Aden,” she gasped. “Please.”

Aden watched her with hooded eyes, feeling nothing but grim satisfaction as she begged for her life.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Disgust turned to rage, a cold fury that drew the gleaming edge of the sharp knife across her throat, slicing through skin and tendons, releasing a fountain of blood as she went to her death staring up at him in disbelief.

He twisted his fingers in her long hair, watching the hot blood pump out of her neck, disappointed that she hadn’t lingered, that her death had been far too swift.

“You made it too easy.”

Aden spun at the sound of a woman’s low, sensuous voice behind him. He stared at the newcomer, the bloody blade still gripped in one hand, his other hand opening to let his dead mistress’s body fall to the floor, forgotten.

The woman smiled. “If you sever the neck here . . .” She drew a finger across the front of her own throat. “It’s satisfying, but the blood spills too quickly. If you want them to linger, you must cut here.” She indicated the side of her throat. “They will still die, but it will be slow, and they will know every moment of their death.”

Aden stared silently. He didn’t know this woman, had never seen her before in this house. She wasn’t veiled and didn’t seem bothered by it, or by the fact that she was facing a strange, armed and half-naked male. She also didn’t seem overly troubled that he’d just murdered his mistress in front of her.

“Aden, isn’t it?” she said, taking a step closer.

He thought about using the knife on her before she could run screaming to report his crime. But something stopped him. She hadn’t done so yet, and besides, what did it matter if this woman reported him? He couldn’t remain here anyway, and he’d be long gone before anyone arrived.

She stretched out a hand, stroking it down his arm, the look in her eyes one he’d seen often enough to recognize it. Women found him attractive, beautiful even. They admired his face, his size, and the strength of his body.

“Sweet child,” she whispered, urging him to turn around. “Let me see.”

He turned, letting her see the ruin of his back, even as he scowled at his own complacency, his obedience. He was hardly the child she’d called him, but it was as if her voice was inside his head, replacing his own thoughts, telling his body what to do.

“She’s nearly ruined you, hasn’t she?” He felt cool fingers gliding over the lumpy scar tissue. “What a waste,” she murmured. “But we can fix that,” she added, speaking normally. “Look at me, child.”

He did, wondering again why she was calling him child when they were surely very near the same age.

“Would you like to go with me, Aden? To leave this place, this life, forever?”

He stared at her in confusion. “I don’t—” he started, his voice a croak of sound. “I don’t understand,” he said, trying again. “Where would we go?”

“Anywhere we want,” she said, with a mysterious smile. “I can give you freedom you’ve only dreamed of. We can go anywhere, do anything.”

“How?”

Her smile broadened, until it was a slash of white against her olive skin. He watched in amazement as some of her teeth began to grow, until they became . . . fangs. Like a serpent’s. Two smooth, sharp fangs that split her upper gums and pressed against the lush fullness of her lower lip.

Somewhere in the back of his brain a voice was mewling in terror, urging him to run away from this monstrous female. But the rest of him felt . . . content. As if after twenty-seven years of wandering, he’d finally found the one place he truly belonged. He lifted his hand, wanting to stroke the woman’s cheek which would be smooth and soft, to touch the diamond hardness of her fangs. But the blood of his mistress still dripped from his fingers, and it made him hesitate. The woman saw his hesitation and smiled, and then she did something that shocked him to his core. Taking his hand in hers, she kissed it, her tongue lapping out to taste the blood.

Aden’s eyes grew wide. “Vampire,” he whispered. He’d heard tales of such things, but had thought them only that, children’s stories meant to frighten.

The woman smiled up at him, proudly, as if he’d done something clever, something marvelous.

“I am Vampire,” she agreed. “And it is wondrous. I would share it with you, Aden, if you will have it.”

“What would it mean?”

“You and I would go far away. We would want for nothing.”

Aden looked around the opulence of his dead mistress’s rooms, the silk and gold, the fine porcelain dishes. And he thought of his own tiny room, with its cheap wooden box hiding his few treasures, the dim light concealing the threadbare state of his linens, the gaudy gifts his women brought him as if he was an animal to be blinded by their shiny surface and too stupid to know their true value.

He thought of little Sana and the others. He would miss them. He would have given his life to protect them. But he discovered he would not sacrifice this future for them.

“What is your name, mistress?” he asked.

The woman’s smile grew. “I am Leticia.”

Aden repeated the strange syllables silently, tasting them on his tongue. “Leticia,” he said out loud. “I will go with you.”

Chicago, IL, present day

“WHAT HAPPENED after that?”

Sidonie’s voice jerked Aden back to the present, to the elegant rooms of his Chicago headquarters and the warm woman lying naked next to him and smelling of sex. He rolled her beneath him, savoring her easy surrender, the way she spread her legs to accommodate him, her silky thighs cradling his hips.

“We traveled the world,” he said, answering her question.

“Did you . . . I mean . . . were you a couple?”

Aden raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “You mean did we have sex?”

Sidonie scowled up at him, and he leaned down to kiss her soft lips, smoothing away the frown.

“Of course we did. She was my Mistress. She made me a vampire. We were lovers for half a century.”

“Why’d you stop?”

He shrugged one shoulder dismissively. “One night I saved her life, and she released me.”

“Did you . . .” Sidonie drew a deep breath, as if gathering her courage. “Did you love her?”

He stroked his fingers gently over her forehead, along her cheekbones, memorizing her face. “A vampire always loves the one who turns him,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s as if our blood cells recognize where we came from, who created us.” He held her gaze, wanting her to understand. “But I never loved her the way you mean. She was a willing lover and an intelligent woman. I enjoyed her.”