They were extraordinary eyes. Warm brown around the edges with a cool grey surrounding the pupil. Stunning eyes. Inhuman eyes. She’d been told some vampires’ eyes changed color when they turned, but she didn’t want to ask. The question felt too intimate. He was looking, not at her face, but at her hair. His head cocked to the side as he ran his gaze all over the natural curls she’d let down that night.

“What do you want?” Makeda asked. “Why are you really here?”

“I want you…” He blinked and his eyes came back to hers. “I want you to leave me alone.”

“I have a job to do. Just like you.”

“I know.” His eyes flicked down to her lips. She felt an inexplicable pull toward him. She’d forgotten about her pulse. Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest at his proximity.

Damn him.

“You should go back to Ethiopia,” Lucien murmured. “Reality is always better than dreams.”

“It’s not.”

“It is. Because it’s real. How can you love something that isn’t real?”

Makeda blinked, and Lucien was standing in the doorway again. “Someone is at the door.”

A quick, cheerful knock told her Philip had finally come calling, but her eyes never left Lucien.

“I don’t have any desire to share your company with another,” he said. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow night.”

“I’ll bring some shiro… if you want.” Makeda heard Philip knock again, and she turned her head toward the door.

When she looked back, Lucien was already gone.

Saba

The Caucasus Mountains

Arosh stroked his finger over her short, cropped hair, smoothing a line down her spine and over the round curve of her buttocks. Saba sighed and moved closer to his touch.

“My queen, why do you come to me with such a heavy heart?” he whispered. “Do you need my fire for your vengeance?”

She blinked her eyes open, staring at the silks draped over his bed high in the mountains of Georgia. She could hear the soft, slippered feet of the women who served him shuffling in the corridors outside. A brazier burned low, not that she needed it when she was in Arosh’s bed. It could be the middle of winter and the man would still walk shirtless through the snow.

“I don’t know what I need,” Saba said.

“Command me, my love. For I am ever your servant.”

She smiled. “You’re my servant when it suits you.”

“True.” He stretched his arms up and out. “But when I see your eyes turn inward, I know what you are thinking.”

“I’m not there.” She rolled over and laid her head on his flat abdomen. His amnis sparked under her cheek. The trail of hair low on his belly tickled her lip, and she reached out and bit it, making him laugh. “I’m not there yet, my fire king.”

His fingers traced over the whirling spiral scars that decorated her shoulders. “You will tell me, Saba. For both of us have been quiet for too long. We are not retiring creatures. When you are ready, we will remake the world and begin again.”

“Kato will not approve.”

Arosh shrugged. “His heart is too soft toward the humans. It always has been.”

“Neither will my son approve.”

“Is Lucien your king?”

She bared her fangs and scraped fine lines over Arosh’s hip. “Be careful. You assume much.”

He yanked her up and latched his mouth over her breast, drawing long and hard at the sensitive rise until his teeth pierced her skin and Saba’s back arched with pleasure.

Arosh lifted his bloody mouth to hers, and Saba tasted herself on his lips.

“You like it when I assume,” he said.

“I will give my son a little more time,” she said, “before I take any steps he would find unconscionable.”

“Leave your son out of my bed,” Arosh said. “He has no place here.” He kissed a line between her breasts, over her belly, and south toward the garden where he’d always found his pleasure.

Saba smiled and grabbed a fistful of Arosh’s silken hair. “And who is your queen, fire king?”

“Only my Saba.” Arosh’s teeth sank into the soft flesh of her inner thigh. “Only you.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Dublin, Ireland

“Baojia said you were close. That was a year ago. What happened?” Brigid was a fire vampire and chief of security for Patrick Murphy, the immortal leader of Dublin. She was tiny, irritable, and flammable, especially when she didn’t get the answers she was after. She was also mated to one of Lucien’s friends. Carwyn ap Bryn was a former priest and current patriarch of one of the largest clans of earth vampires around the globe.

“Whatever update you can give us,” Carwyn said, “would be most welcome. Murphy has been wanting an update, as has Terrance Ramsay in London. We appreciate the tests you’ve developed—they’ve helped enormously—but new infections are still happening despite the crackdown on Elixir shipments.”

“There is no straight line in this kind of research,” Lucien said, staring into the fire. “I’ve managed to isolate the cause. That’s why we can test for it in human blood. But diagnosis doesn’t mean treatment. I can tell you what’s happening with the Elixir virus, but I can’t tell you how to treat it.”

Brigid said, “So it is a virus?”

“It’s a virus in humans that can spread to vampires. Only it mutates from human to vampire, so the treatment for one will have to be different than the treatment for the other. The test you have can detect the protein tied to the virus. But killing this virus…” Lucien shook his head. “You can’t kill it. You can only starve it.”