“That was your man?” I fought to suppress the rage boiling inside me at this revelation.
“That one was,” she said sharply. “Who knows who else saw?”
“And who cares?” I challenged her. “So, I fed her. She’d had a rough evening.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” she hissed, slamming her glass so hard on the coffee table’s marble top that its stem shattered. She groaned and caught the globe in her hand before a drop was spilled. A second later her own blood trickled down her wrist from the broken glass. If it hurt, she showed no sign of it. “This is not just any season–”
“The Rites have been enacted,” I cut her off. “I know.”
“Being seen with a female during the Rites signals unavailability. You know this!”
“I do,” I said coolly.
“I don’t understand.” She drained the rest of the blood in a single swig and tossed the broken glass into the hearth. “What did I do to deserve this? I gave some of the best years of my life to raising my children and now? If your father were here…”
“It’s good to see your theatrical side is intact,” I said flatly, “and speaking of which, where is my father?”
“Vienna.” She dismissed the details with a flick of her wrist. “Or Venice? It’s not important. We needed a little space.”
In my parents’ case, they often needed to put an ocean or two between them after an argument. I decided not to press her for details. It would either distract her or make her madder. It was hard to tell.
She pinched the bridge of her nose before calmly continuing, “You have to be more careful. What would happen if you were linked to someone right now? It could hurt your marriageability. I won’t live forever.”
“Promise?” I grumbled.
“That’s a terrible thing to say to your mother!” She clutched her chest as if I’d physically wounded her, and I murmured a quiet apology. “The point is that someone has to be ready to take my place.”
“When?” I cut her off. “A couple hundred years from now? A millennium? We’re not in a rush, exactly.”
“Julian, we must protect our way of life and the family name. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about you. Not now.”
“And what idea would that be?” I slung an arm over the back of the chaise and lounged against it. “I’ve never hidden my disinterest in marriage and all of that other shit.”
“All of that other shit,” she repeated, fangs glinting as she spoke, “is tradition, and you can scoff at that all you like, but a girl like that could never be part of our world.”
“Is that what you think?” I asked quietly. I thought of Thea’s face after I’d put a stop to our reckless kiss. She hadn’t been simply disappointed. She had looked rejected.
“There are lovely, accomplished familiars that were waiting to be introduced to you this evening, but you were too busy with…”
“Thea,” I offered her.
“Whatever. The point is that you can’t waste any more chances, and you can’t risk being seen with her.”
I got to my feet. I’d heard enough of this conversation. “I had no idea that you were so prejudiced, especially after all the lovers you’ve taken over the years.”
“A lover is one thing. Take as many of those as you want after you’re married and after you’ve produced an heir.”
“How romantic,” I muttered. “Is that why dad is abroad? Did he catch you with your latest boy toy?”
“Your father and I are very happy with our arrangement, and if you’d just be open to meeting someone, you could be one day, too!”
It was the vampire way. Find a match that stroked your ego or your alliances or your bank account, spit out a kid or two, and then go on with your lives. Make a few more vampires the easy way. Take a few more lovers. Get a little richer and a whole lot snobbier. I’d been stuck on this hamster wheel of privilege long enough.
Sabine mistook my silence for compliance. A smug smile settled on her face. “I knew you would see it my way. Now, you should go join Sebastian in the den. He’s invited the Bennett sisters and the Fairfields. Lovely girls. Sarah just graduated from Yale. I’m positive one of them can make you forget about whatever her name was.”
Thea. I wanted to shout the name at her, but I bit my tongue.
I’d stopped myself from propositioning her to play the part of my girlfriend earlier. She was too innocent, too naive, too human. But she was more than my mother saw. She was a talented musician. She was brave. She was curious. The familiars downstairs were only after one thing, even Sabine wouldn’t deny that. And why would she? To her, it was perfectly natural to marry to strengthen relationships between the mortal witches and our kind. But I wasn’t interested in a life of duty. I didn’t want to go downstairs and find some sycophantic familiar to fuck. Even if I did, I doubted it could erase Thea from my mind. I doubted anything could. Not until I tasted her and given the situation that was impossible.
“Julian.” My mother’s voice coaxed me from my thoughts. “Just be more careful who you are seen with. We wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”
I glared at her, realizing I had nothing to lose but a spot participating in this season’s cattle call. “That could be a problem,” I murmured, enjoying the way her shoulders tensed, “because Thea is my girlfriend.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THEA
Julian’s hands skimmed across my shoulders and down my arms. I sank against him, trying to turn my face to see his, but he lowered his head to the curve of my neck. Warm lips brushed my skin, followed by the gentle scratch of a fang. I twisted into him. A thin sheen of sweat covered my body. This close to him, I felt trapped in my clothes. I wanted to rip them off. Or better yet, I wanted him to rip them off me. His palm slid to my hip, gripping the fleshy curve so roughly it hurt a little. A moan spilled from my lips, and he laughed darkly. I squinted in the darkness, trying to see his face. He thought I was ridiculous and fragile, and I didn’t care. Not as long as I was in his arms. But it was too dark to make out anything other than the sculpted lines of his lips. They parted, and I melted willingly into him. I waited for him to kiss me. My breath caught, hanging on the moment, but then he pulled away, retreating into the shadows.
“Don’t!” I called after him. It was the same as before. Teasing. Provoking. And then a door slammed between us.
But he lingered in the shadows. I felt him more than I saw him. I held my hand out, an olive branch in the darkness. He took one step closer, and my heart jumped in my chest. I didn’t dare speak. It wasn’t that I was afraid I would scare him off. I got the distinct impression that his reticence was for my benefit. Julian took a step closer, bringing half his body into the moonlight, but he paused again.
Once, when I was a child, I was playing in the desert on a camping trip with my mom when I stumbled across a Mojave rattlesnake. The dry, rocky earth concealed him until he reared up, his rattle shaking in a blur. I froze, unable to move as it decided whether to strike. Julian reminded me of the snake. He wasn’t afraid of me; he was deciding what to do with me.
He took a step closer.
“Thea!”
