It was as if Andromeda was seeing a glimpse of the angel Lijuan had once been.
So perhaps . . . perhaps the other was who she would eventually become.
Naasir fed rather than rested. He didn’t kill, didn’t harm. He just made his way to the outskirts of a small, isolated village and smiled at a maiden out in her fields; she smiled back at him, her lips parting. When he walked up to her, she didn’t run and he could hear her pulse thudding, her scent changing as her body readied itself for him.
“I am hungry.”
Shivering at his words, she angled her neck and he drank, one of his hands cradling her head as her breath came in harsh gasps and her eager body pumped more and more of her rich, hot blood into his mouth.
He was gentle, didn’t gorge or take more than she could afford to give, and when he was done, he made sure she’d bear no marks. He always treated his food well, aware that without food, he’d die. “Thank you.”
She gripped at his wrist, stars in her eyes. “Will you return?”
“No.” Lying to his food wasn’t good treatment, so he didn’t do it. “Don’t wait for me.”
Two fat tears rolled down her face. Leaving her watching wet-eyed after him, he disappeared back into the woods, rejuvenated from her gift of blood. He’d had countless similar conversations in his lifetime. When he was a child, he’d fed from Dmitri or Raphael or Keir. At the time, he hadn’t understood the depth of the honor he was being given. He’d known only that three men who were very definitely not food, were allowing him to feed from them—as a result, he’d been on his best behavior.
All three were also so powerful that he’d only needed a sip once every two days at most. It would’ve lasted even longer had he been able to feed more deeply, but he’d been small, only able to handle a tiny taste of such potent blood. Dmitri was the one he’d gone to most often. The older vampire had disciplined him more than anyone else, but Naasir liked that, liked knowing Dmitri cared enough to teach him things. When he’d needed to feed, he’d found Dmitri and Dmitri had held out his wrist.
Never once had he withheld it, not even when Naasir was in trouble.
The times when all three men were gone from the Refuge, he was meant to feed from Jessamy, but in his childish mind, he decided she was too weak to spare blood, and so forced himself to drink the bottled backup blood Dmitri stocked for him.
All that changed as he grew into a bigger boy, then almost a man. He’d discovered that girls liked him. And not just girls. Women, too. Vampires, angels, mortals when he snuck out into the world, women of all ages and races were drawn to him. Their scents melted when he neared.
Suddenly, he had more food than he could ever consume, even if he gorged.
Not that he hadn’t tried.
11
After first discovering his sudden irresistibility to women, Naasir had taken advantage. Then, thinking about all the lessons he’d had from Jessamy, and what he’d learned of honor from watching Dmitri, he’d gone to Dmitri and confessed that it was possible he’d inadvertently been compelling women to him. He was unique—even he didn’t know his own capabilities.
Dmitri had treated his worries seriously. Restricting him to bottled blood, Dmitri had gone out and spoken to over fifty women, all of whom had fed Naasir since he started finding his own food. At the end of his investigation, he’d come to Naasir with a lethally amused smile on his face.
“You aren’t compelling anyone, Naasir. The women are all of sound mind and body and recall their encounter with you with pleasure.” A raised eyebrow. “If they weren’t so terrified of me, I think I’d have been bombarded with invitations for you to return any time you feel hungry.”
Dmitri’s laugh had held a vein of sensual cruelty that drew countless women to the man who was Naasir’s father in all the ways it counted. “It appears you have the same effect as a jungle cat on certain women—they find you beautiful and want to pet you, tame you. Having a wild creature at their throats excites them.”
Since Naasir couldn’t be tamed, he wasn’t angered by the women’s thoughts. Their response to him was occasionally annoying though—it made the hunt too easy. Not only that, it was clear that they reacted to him on a purely physical level, without ever knowing anything about who he was as a person.
Andromeda hadn’t liked him or melted for him. She’d fought with him.
He grinned.
He’d make her like him after he got her out of Lijuan’s citadel. And when he fed from her, he’d feed her in turn, so she’d know she wasn’t just food to him. He wondered what she liked to eat. He’d have to find out so he could court her properly and confirm she was his mate. He’d never courted anyone before, but he’d watched other people do it. He knew he was supposed to bring her gifts, do things that made her smile.
To accomplish that, he’d have to discover Andromeda’s smaller secrets. Having watched others win and lose at courting, he knew the best gifts matched the person. Maybe he’d find her a knife. Elena liked the knife Raphael had given her, and Andromeda was a warrior, too. But he’d have to find the right knife. Or perhaps he’d get her something else.
Dmitri had given Honor jewels he’d held safe for centuries, as if part of him had known he was waiting for his mate to claim them. Honor’s eyes went soft every time she touched her fingers to those jewels. Naasir hadn’t seen Andromeda wearing jewels but he hadn’t known her long. Maybe she liked sparkly things. Naasir liked them sometimes. He had a large cache he’d collected over the years. He hadn’t even stolen most of them—he’d stopped stealing things even from people he didn’t like four hundred years ago, after he grew up.
It had taken him longer than other immortals because he was different.
A growl sounded not far from him. He growled back and had a running companion for over an hour before the other runner rumbled a snarling good-bye and turned back into his territory. Continuing to run at the same relentless pace, Naasir looked up at the sky and tried to find Jason. He couldn’t. The spymaster was too good.
When he saw a small truck parked up ahead on the far edge of a field—as if the owner had walked into the village in the distance—he got into it. Hot-wiring the ignition, he drove the truck until he’d exhausted the fuel, ran again until he found another ride. He was moving as fast as he could without causing his body to shut down, but Lijuan’s territory was vast. It would take him at least another full day to reach Andromeda. Another twenty-four to thirty-six hours when she was alone with Zhou Lijuan.
Snarling, he reminded himself that the woman who smelled like his mate wasn’t prey. She was smart. She had secrets. She would survive.
Andromeda’s gasp was still hanging in the air when Lijuan smiled. “Ah, have you seen my faces?” She carried on speaking without waiting for an answer. “I am continuing to evolve. Soon, I will be more powerful than even the legends rumored to Sleep beneath the Refuge.”
Andromeda had no doubts Lijuan was changing, but she wasn’t sure she’d call it evolution. “Lady,” she said instead, her tone respectful. “According to reports filed after the battle, you perished in the fighting.” She needed to keep Lijuan talking. It would give her precious more time to think of a way out of this situation.
“I am not so easy to kill.” Lijuan’s voice echoed with screams again on the last two words, as if the souls she’d swallowed were fighting to get out. “I decided on a strategic retreat, decided to permit Raphael to live.”