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Centuries before in India, a Brahman teacher had handed Maysun the power of the Balance. Although she had little idea what had inspired him to pass that power onto her, when the moment passed, she understood how and why he’d done it. Likewise, Maysun needed no instructions to guide her in transferring her power to Eoghan. She placed her fingertips on Eoghan’s temples and simply wished for it.
She felt like a shore with a slowly ebbing tide creeping away without concern or mercy for those it affected. A part of her that had appreciated the power and responsibility ached to grasp at the riptides of strength draining from her and funneling into Eoghan, edging out and obscuring his most profound signs of age, making it difficult to gauge.
A physical change began in her, too. First, her toes and feet tingled, and it took several moments to realize it was because she sensed the cold. Then, her limbs grew heavy as the vitality she held made its way from the rest of her body and traveled down her arms and fingers into Eoghan’s waiting vessel. Her neck fell forward as her shoulders weakened, and she fought her buckling legs.
When the change finished, Maysun’s legs wobbled. She gripped the back of Eoghan’s chair before the need to collapse won. The process might have taken five minutes, but to her body, it seemed like hours. When she opened her eyes, stars danced before them.
She backed to a chair, stumbling as she went, and fell into it as soon as her knees touched the edge of the seat. Her eyes blinked as the world grew fuzzy. The view didn’t improve. Her eyes had aged, and her vision blurry.
Oh yes. This is what it’s like to be tired and old. She had forgotten.
With the power of the Balance had come supernatural strength and endurance, the ability to work days at a time without sleep, the power to block out pain, and the inability to age. However, memory was often sacrificed for the greater good of the Earth. She’d matured several years as her agelessness moved to Eoghan. Did she now look like the seventy-year-old woman who’d inherited the job from the Brahman priest? Her hands and arms looked only slightly different. Fate had been kind; it did not repay her for her service with a dying body.
Eoghan opened his sky-blue eyes and gazed around the room. She knew what he was seeing: the entire universe in the space of one tiny kitchen. While his eyes took in the table, the tins of tea, and her, the knowledge of continents flowed through him as easily as oxygen to his lungs. Her rediscovered human thoughts struck her as remarkably mundane.
His gaze fell on hers. “Brilliant,” he murmured. He continued to study her as if she were the source of his newfound insight. Then his brows furrowed. “Maysun...”
“It’s all right,” she said. “You’ll get used to it in time.”
“But why don’t I feel... I mean, why don’t I—?”
“You can’t afford to have the emotions you did,” she explained. “Part of being the Balance includes not letting your emotions affect the delicate equilibrium that keeps the earth stable. If you did, it would be hard not to let the earth become overrun with good and unable to understand what a gift it is.”
Eoghan paused, visibly upset—or as upset as his newly dwindled emotions allowed. In time, his feelings would recede until they all but vanished. Now, the power flowing through him was growing, conquering the last vestiges of lingering humanity.
“Did you ever love me?” he asked.
Surprised by the question, Maysun had to consider her answer. Eoghan would sense a spurious reply. Not that she intended to lie, but she’d gotten into the habit of dancing around the truth.
“As much as I could,” she finally replied.
He processed her answer with a blink of his heavy-lidded eyes.
“Can I die?”
She smiled, aware of the oddly exhausted muscles in her face. “You tell me.”
Eoghan considered it like a young man pondering the solution to a riddle. She wondered if it felt the same to him as it had to her as he prodded the fabric of the Universe in search of answers.
“I can die,” he finally said, “But I’ll know how not to. Where to be, and where not to be, what to say, when not to speak. It’s all there. The ways to prolong life. It’s there, too.”
She tipped her head in a bow, affirming his answer.
“I have to go,” he said, standing and weaving, a little punch-drunk with power that animated him with a pressing need to be where the Balance called.
“I understand,” she said, wanting to stand as well, but unable.
Eoghan started to the door but stopped at the edge of the kitchen, his hand extended short of the knob.
“Do you ever get used to this?” he asked, a childlike expression on his ageless face. “All these... thoughts? All this information? It seems there’s so much to do, so many places to be.”
“You learn to choose your battles,” she said. “Otherwise, you’d never rest. There are many places you’ll need to be, and at times it will seem as though there’s too much to do, that life asks too much of you. You’ll learn to handle it.”
He put his hand on the doorknob.
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said.
She wanted to say so much. With the return of her humanity, exhaustion and age had returned. More than that, years of pent-up emotions had come back; the weight of all the times she’d had to act in unethical ways, all those times she’d fought battles she wouldn’t have otherwise supported, all the guilt for the immoral acts she’d committed in the name of balancing the good with the evil.
And, sitting there in the tiny kitchen in Scotland, Maysun stared into the eyes of the lover she’d held close for over three decades. Now that she had gotten in touch with her heart, she not only understood that he’d loved her, but that he had been better to and for her than any man. For the first time, she felt the depth of her love for him, and it was awe-inspiring. The sensation was more potent than what she’d wielded as the Balance. Like all the emotions she’d suppressed for centuries had come back as this single emotion—her love for Eoghan. It was beautiful. Intoxicating. Heartbreaking.
Aware that tears flowed down her cheeks and burned her eyes, her throat constricted as she choked on emotion, she forced herself to speak one more time before her lover walked out of the door and, very likely, out of her life forever.
“I love you,” she breathed.
He looked down, unable to say what wouldn’t be true. If he returned the sentiment, he would be lying, and they would both know it. Eoghan had never lied to her, and he wouldn’t start now.
“My heart has always been yours,” he murmured. He closed the door behind him.
Thom’s head had dropped to his chest. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep, but his gut roiled.
Anger. Frustration. Irritation. All directed at the cocky assholes who sauntered around his house telling ridiculous vampire stories.
Who were these men, and why did they have so much interest in Amara? For all he knew, she might have taken turns fucking each of them. The woman never talked! She just locked herself up in her studio at all hours, attacking canvases as if they held the secret to life.
He’d tried to be patient with her. She never bitched about all of his overtime, all the travel, all the time apart. But it was hard not to ask her why she didn’t give up and live like a regular housewife. What was wrong with romance novels and watching Lifetime movies? Why didn’t she join a gym or a club or volunteer like his coworker’s wives? It wasn’t like her work was selling much. Unfortunately, she’d had enough success to keep her flinging paint.
If she weren’t such a tiger in the sack, he probably would’ve left ages ago. Or at least have had a decent affair instead of a handful of flings with younger women he saw around the office.
Once he realized that David’s story had ended, he lifted his head and gave the man a bewildered look.
“You’re telling me she’s a vampire?” Thom asked.
“No,” David said, his face reflecting an odd emotion that might have been disgust. “Well, not the way we are. See, that’s what’s thrown a real spanner in the works. Most days, she’s nearly human. She holds a job, if you call her painting a job.”
Thom scoffed. David regarded him with a smirk and went on. “She doesn’t drink blood nearly often enough to be a vampire. She’s an addict, though. And she has a bit of our power.”
“Power? Amara?” Thom sneered. “Oh, that’s bullshit. Like what?”
David ignored him. “She lost her mind a little that night too, but she hides it well. She thinks she went crazy and did it herself. All those bruises, the bite marks—she thinks she’s mental and hiding it. Like our presence. For years, she’s sensed us; her vampire blood won’t let her ignore that we’re there, following her around. After a while, we became a bit bored, and we started teasing her a bit for fun. But she thinks it’s because she’s crazy, so she ignores us. Easy enough to do. I’ve taught my boys to be invisible or out of sight most of the time.
“We can read her thoughts, just as she reads ours when we let her. She thinks she’s a functioning schizophrenic, the only person she knows who invented imaginary friends as a teenager.”
“Not to mention that she married a man who looks like you, Dave.” Angelo sat up a little and then shrank back down at a fierce look from his blood brother.
“Thanks, Ange.” He studied Thomas, noting the likeness. “Yeah, there’s that, too.”
“What’s this got to do with what’s happening in the basement?” Thom snapped.
“Vampire blood is addicting to humans. Very addicting. Most of the time, she does fine without it, though. Better than anyone I know, and I’ve seen my share of Renfields. But there are days she remembers. Vividly. And when she remembers, she craves it. And when she craves it, she goes... well, a little barmy.”
“What do you mean? Like fucking seventeen-year-olds in the basement crazy?”
“I told you—Perry’s not really seventeen. It’s when he was turned. Vamps don’t age, remember? And Amara is part vampire. Ever notice how your wife doesn’t age like most people?”
Thomas hesitated, not wanting to concede any part of David’s story. “We’ve only been together five years.”
“Well, how old is she? Thirty-three, right? And she only looks as though she’s in her early twenties? It’s the vampire blood. She’s not a perfect vampire, though, so I’m guessing she’ll age, but much slower.”
The door to the basement opened, and a young man—dark-haired, like David, but fair, with bright turquoise-blue eyes—emerged, a sated look on his youthful face, a very human-looking bite mark on his neck. Thomas glared. If she’s a vampire, where are her fangs?
“Cheers,” the young man said to David.
“No problem, mate.” David turned to Thomas. “He looks young, but Perry here is closer to her age than you are. Renfields—well, Amara’s not a Renfield—”
“You keep saying that. What the fuck is a Renfield?”
“Vampire servant.”
“Looks like she’s serving you fine,” Thom snarled. “I should’ve known there was a reason she didn’t mind me working all those hours.”
“No, Thomas, you’re not listening. She’s not herself right now. My mates and me, we call it when her fangs come out. Amara’s not a philanderer by nature. Unlike you. When she gets like this, she’s detached from reality. Her fangs have come out, and she needed to feed.”
Thomas digested the story and tried to figure out what parts were truth, and what parts fiction. How had David known he cheated? How far back did all of this go? After a minute, he gave in and spoke.
“You’re telling me all this bullshit, but she’s never acted like this since we’ve been together.”
“She has. You’ve just never been around. We’ve always relocated you in time. Business trips. Family emergencies. Trysts with women from the club or the office. All planned.”
The truth in David’s words sank in, and the color left Thomas’ cheeks. “You staged that accident with my cousin last year?”
“And your father’s emergency surgery. Yes.”
“And—”
“That little affair during the New Year holiday the year you and Amara moved in together. That was us as well. I won’t tell her if you don’t. Never have before.” His smug expression and ribald attitude enraged Thomas. He let out a frustrated breath, yanked at his restraints until his legs and arms grew raw with rope burn, and finally gave up.
Breathing heavily, he lifted his head. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“It means that Amara will need blood. Vampire blood, so you can’t help—not that I suspect you’d offer. We’ve tried, but the human stuff doesn’t pack a punch no matter how much we give her. And it seems she doesn’t just want the blood. She craves sex. To her, it’s all one dependence. Perry here was the one to help her out this year. He often is. She seems to like him.”
“Cor, Dave!” the young man said. “Why don’t you hand him a pointy stick and toss him at my heart?”
Angelo sniggered. “What’s the matter, Perrywinkle?” he chortled. “Afraid you’ll get a splinter?”
“Not—not funny, Ange,” Perry snapped defensively. Perry’s hands balled at his sides, but he avoided eye contact with the older vampire.
David made a motion that ended the banter. “Perry,” he said softly, “no stake would cash your chips in.”
“Easy for you to say,” Perry said in a huff. “You’re first generation.”
David put a paternal hand on Perry’s forearm. “And you are my son,” he said, “In all ways that matter. Do you think I’d let anything happen to you?”
Perry looked away, embarrassed.
Thom fidgeted in his chair and scowled, unmoved by the display of affection from these men who, up to this point, had shown nothing other than snide condescension. Ready to put the focus back on him and the problem with his wife, he leaned over to catch David’s attention. “And what if I don’t want to let her do this? Can’t I give her the blood? The sex? What’s wrong with me doing it for her?”
“Are you really this thick? You’re not a vampire, Thomas,” David said. “She wouldn’t get what she needs from you. We could change that.” He gave Thom an appreciative leer. “You’re already good-looking and heartless. You’d fit right in with our family. We could share her.”
And be a freak like you? No way. “I can’t forbid this from happening? I can’t not let her go?”
David shrugged, amused. If Thomas didn’t know better, he’d have thought the man had read his thoughts.
Thomas shook his head. Share Amara? No. She might not be much, but she was beautiful, and she was his. “There has to be another way...”
“It’s a hell of a concept, I understand. But if it’s any condolence, her experience with Perry just now was nothing more to her than a nice little dream. She won’t believe it happened—she never does. Tomorrow, she’ll push it all to the back of her mind like it never happened. It’s all part of her denial of what she is.”
“And what’s that?”
“A creature whose instinct is to kill. Like myself.” His eyes developed a devilish twinkle, and the pupils grew until the irises went from brown to black. “But, unlike Amara, I can get what I need from you.”
Thom noticed his sagging jaw, and he snapped his mouth shut.
“It’s your choice, Thomas,” David said. “You can let us stick around, cooperate with us when it comes time to take Amara for a drink. I like you. Hell, as I said, you can become one of us. Or you can die.”
Thomas waited long enough to make it appear that he’d considered the offer. “Untie me,” he said.
David produced a pocketknife from his jeans and cut the ropes with quick flicks of his wrist. Thomas stood, his fists balled at his sides, ready to strike one of them, maybe all of them at once. From behind clenched teeth, he struggled to find his voice. When he did, the words emerged garbled with anger. “You can go to—”
One motion from David and the air around Thom thickened. He was no longer restrained, but it was as if the ropes bound him once more. David’s eyes bore into his: large, inky black... hypnotic. Handsome. God, so handsome. Thom found his breath short, his heartbeat deafening.
“Perry?” David asked, never breaking his eye contact with Thom.
Perry held up a palm and waggled his head. “No. I’m good.”
With a mere flicker of his friend’s hand, Angelo crossed the distance from the sofa to Thomas’s side without appearing in any of the intervening space.
As Angelo’s teeth penetrated the skin at Thom’s throat, David broke the stare. Thom had barely enough time to break from his trance to realize he was screaming.
