“Please,” I said, “I am Leah.”
“I know who you are,” he said. “I’m James.”
“You know me?”
“Constantine’s girl. Aefre, is it?” he replied.
“Perhaps. Who do you belong to?” I asked rudely, as by a tacit arrangement among our kind, this was not a question that we should ask. I trailed a finger lightly over his arm.
“My Mistress is Eloise,” he said with a wicked glint.
Oh, that bitch. “Mistress?”
He ignored my question in favor of his own, “Do you like to play, Leah?”
“That depends on the game,” I said seductively. His eyes went darker as he gazed lustfully at me.
“I have something in mind,” he said quietly. “Come.” He took my hand and helped me rise.
“Where are we going?” I asked him as he pulled me out of the tavern.
“Wait and see.” He walked us down the banks of the River Liffey to an inn not too far away.
“I think you are being a bit presumptuous,” I huffed at him.
He led me into a bedroom and laughed softly at me. “You are free to leave if you don’t want to play.”
“Lucky for you, I am bored, so I will stay,” I said and smiled serenely at him.
He stepped closer. “You are very beautiful in this guise,” he murmured as he kissed me gently. “I prefer it to your natural look.”
I pulled away. “I beg your pardon?”
“You don’t have to pretend with me, I know of your ability.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You seem to know an awful lot about me.”
“I came here looking for you.”
“Why, pray tell?”
“I wanted to make your acquaintance and being with you is going to go a long way in angering my sire. Something I am quite inclined to do right now.”
“I admire your honesty,” I said to him. I knew a thing or two about needing to anger your sire and I wouldn’t mind being the cause of such for that god-awful woman. “Never let it be said that I wasn’t happy to help out,” I said, and grabbed him, pulling him to me with a renewed sense of satisfaction as I pictured her face when she found out that I had defiled her boy. I was stronger than him, but only just and he let me take him my way. But only that once.
We fell into a pattern over the next few months of spending every day together, every night. He was fun and clever and in spite my initial reasons for being with him, I found that I liked him. He was a devil in the bedroom, made me call him “Master” and he called me his slave. I liked to play with him. I didn’t mind being submissive with him as I got to take out my domineering side on Devon straight after. The best of both. He told me he was falling in love with me, and I thought I was starting to feel the same. Little did I know it would all end in tears.
“Well, I won’t apologize for ending him. And certainly, not on your behalf,” Cade declares.
“No, I’m not upset, really. More just shocked that you managed it…I don’t mean that as an insult, as I have no idea as to your capabilities, but he was nearly as old as I am.”
“Hm, maybe so, but you really do have no idea as to my capabilities. Well, with regards to every other Vampire. You, on the other hand, are a tricky devil.”
“You have no idea,” I murmur.
“What will you tell your posse of us?”
Again? Why do I need to keep explaining myself?