I was about to tear myself away from her when a drop of blood, already running down her neck, touched my tongue and almost hypnotically drew my lips back to her neck.

She had taken her hands off the table, clawed one into my neck with a sigh, and ran her fingers through my hair.

Her moan told me she liked it, and I kissed my way further down to her cleavage, where a garment peeked out that definitely belonged off limits.

Lace on such a body made even me lose my clear mind.

I wanted to taste this girl, to enjoy her completely before I sucked her out, which is why I pressed her even closer to me.

The moment my teeth dug into her neck again, deeper this time, I realized what a state I was in and what I had just been thinking.

Startled, I tore myself away from her and stared into her astonished doe eyes. As innocent as they looked, there was as much desire in them as I felt growing inside me.

Then I looked down at her bloody neck and lurched forward, placing my hands on the bloody area and watching the wounds disappear as I adjusted my breathing, because the sweet scent was once again trying to lure me in. To fuck with my sanity.

The unsuspecting girl in front of me was slightly out of breath, but quickly collected herself and pushed me away from her. She hadn’t even noticed that I had half-opened her neck.

Who the hell was she?

I was still perplexed by my reaction to the smell of her blood, so I let her close her leather jacket, which accentuated her wasp waist and made me hungry again.

I held my breath, as we were supposed to do when we were among mortals, because we didn't need oxygen.

The girl slid off the table, but I couldn’t just let her go. Before I did, I had to make her forget what had just happened. I grabbed her arm and stared at her. My gaze fixed on her eyes and she stared at me again, just like the last time.

“Forget everything that has to do with me...” I murmured, although it wasn’t even necessary.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and I instantly felt a pain in my head. The more I tried to focus on her, the more it hurt. What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t it working?

A slight premonition crept over me that it might not have worked last time either, but that was impossible.

“Who are you?” I asked her, trying to focus on her memories again.

“Your eyes are beautiful. What drug are you on?”

These words completely jolted me out of my stupor. Never before had anyone told me that they thought my eyes were beautiful, let alone spoken at a fixation...

And that human girl simply dared not answer my questions. Where had the respect gone? Didn’t she feel the power that emanated from me, like all the others who submitted to me when I played with them? When I was hungry...

“You like to play with fire, I suppose?” I asked and came a little closer again. I instantly noticed how her pulse quickened. Tied to it, my lust and desire rose again. But that had no place here anymore.

I buried any emotions that had come up inside, slightly disgusted with myself, and instead looked at the girl standing in front of the table, still looking into my eyes in confusion.

What was different about her compared to the others?

The fact that she didn’t answer again made me impatient and angry. On top of that, I had lost my control today once again and almost went one step too far – something Bastien and Camille had been warning us about for half a lifetime, something that I couldn’t seem to escape with all my control.

Everything had been under control until this girl had shown up here, in fact, until Bastien had sent us here.

Suddenly, I heard very distant footsteps in the hallway.

Shit. My blood brothers were on their way.

I looked at the girl whose name I didn’t even know. She had to get out of here before they realized my powers hadn’t worked.

I looked around, my gaze roaming the room, but what I was about to do was too risky. They would hear her and even if she was quiet enough, which I highly doubted, then there was still the smell.

My gaze lingered on the third large window, further back in the room, and I pulled the girl right there with me.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she said, unruly. I would have loved to pin her to the wall again for that insolence and pick up where I left off.

“Could you please not make such a racket?” I remarked dryly, completely focused on opening the window without making much noise myself.

“What are you doing?” she asked, confused, but I didn’t have time to explain.

I snorted tensely.

Miles and David would be here any second. There was no time for explanations left. So, I did the next best thing, picked the girl up and looked once again into her frightened eyes.

“Get out of here and stay away from me and my family...” I began. “And don’t you dare spy on me and my brothers ever again.”

“Wait... What...? No!”

Before she could say anything, I threw her slight body through the open window out into the garden, into one of the many bushes.

“Hey! You ass...!” she shouted with a little too much noise, whereupon I quickly closed the window and hurried across the room to the door. The two of them were almost there.

If the girl were smart enough, she would abide by my words and keep her distance. At least, that’s what I hoped.

I opened the door and stepped into the hallway where Miles was leaning against the wall, and David was staring out the glassless columned window into an adjoining courtyard.

I was about to ask a question when Miles raised his hand with a grin.

“Whatever was going on in that little storage room, we don’t even want to know.”

David smirked.

I pressed my lips together and straightened my shirt.

They must have heard us.

“Was she at least AB?” Miles asked, and I looked at him warningly.

“Come on...” His gaze wandered to the door. “She’s still in there, isn’t she?”

He started for the door, but I stepped in front of him.

He patted me on the shoulders and turned away from me again. I walked over to the window to David.