“Not tonight,” she whispered. “Lucien, I can’t…”

Her emotions were too volatile. Her control was still on the edge.

“Not tonight,” he said. “Just kiss me, Makeda. Don’t think of anything else. Just kiss me.”

“Yes.”

Lucien rolled over Makeda and braced his body over hers, letting her feel the weight and the strength of his arousal. She shoved slender fingers in his hair and gripped hard, forcing a groan from his throat. Her knees lifted and pressed against his hips as her pelvis arched up. Her heat seared him, but he still felt her, slightly removed, an observer to her own passion.

He would make her mindless if it was the last thing he did.

Lucien gloried in the challenge, but it wasn’t just the challenge. He reached up and cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb across the dark gold ochre of her skin. His heart swelled that she was there, lying under his body, vibrant with amnis and humming with life.

She was alive.

Forever alive.

And she would be his.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They swam the next night, across the lake and down a river thick with silt, the red-brown water opaque even to vampire eyes. But Makeda no longer needed her eyes. She felt everything as she swam. The herds of hippopotamuses and lazy slither of crocodiles. The quick darting fish and swooping birds that skimmed the lake.

And as she swam, Lucien’s presence was behind her. He clasped her ankle with a gentle hand, letting her lead them toward the falls he’d described but taking the lead when they needed to exit the river to avoid human construction or traffic. They moved so quickly the scents of humans didn’t even register over the living smells of the Nile. They passed the lights of the city and moved deeper into the countryside. The moon rose and the stars grew brilliant in the sky.

Makeda stopped and floated in the river, turning her back to it as she gazed into the blackness.

“I always thought they were white,” she said.

“They are.” Lucien linked his fingers with hers as they floated downstream. “And they’re not. They’re every color.”

She glanced at him. “Do you remember what things looked like as a human?”

“Not really. I used to hold on to memories of daylight so tightly. I had one of my mother walking across the courtyard. I don’t remember if she was beautiful, but she was very tall and had dark red hair. When color photographs and motion pictures came, I think I lost those memories. I remember having them, but I can’t really see them anymore.”

“Because you had something more immediate to take their place.”

“Yes.” He rolled over and floated on his belly. “There are no humans around here. Not for miles. You can relax.”

“And at the falls?”

“I doubt it.”

A tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding on to eased. “I’m terrified I’ll kill someone.”

“It’s almost certain you will at some point,” Lucien said. “Killing is unavoidable in our world.”

Makeda sat up in the water, floating with no effort. “Then why do we exist? How does your conscience allow you to—”

“I save more than I kill,” he said. “Is a cost-and-benefit analysis allowed?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“We’re predators, Makeda. You’ll discover that the more you grow into your new life. The more you understand your abilities and limitations. We’re predators,” he said. “Like all the powerful.”

She turned in circles and scanned the darkness that was no longer so dark. What would have appeared black to her human eyes was now a layered landscape of grey. “You’re saying humans are predators too.”

“The most powerful are rather blatant about it.” He shrugged. “At least we’re predators for a reason other than our own power.”

“Fine. But the question remains, why do we exist?”

“Why does the lion?”

“To maintain balance in an ecosystem, apex predators must always exist,” Makeda answered. “But lions don’t eat other lions.”

“But they do maintain balance,” he said. “We don’t have to kill to eat, and most of us don’t. The truth about our existence would have been discovered long ago if we did. Now we’re myths and legends. Predators who can walk side by side with our prey.”

“But we are monsters.”

“If something has the ability to think and to reason, it has the ability to be monstrous,” Lucien said. “Why aren’t all human beings benevolent? Why do even the best of them sometimes do things they abhor?”

Makeda frowned. “No one is perfect. That’s human nature.”

“Of course it is,” Lucien said. “And humans—like us—can be monstrous. That some of our kind choose not to be—even with our greater strength—is the reason we exist. I believe we do what the lion does. We maintain balance.”

“We keep the human monsters in check?” Makeda asked. “And who keeps us in check?”

Lucien grinned. “The sun, of course. And that, yene konjo, is a lesson in humility. We may have the ability to prey upon humans, but we need them to survive. And the very thing that gives them life will kill us faster than anything else.”

“Even Saba?”

“Even Saba. She can cloak herself and survive longer than most, but even she can burn.”