“I apologize,” she said.

“Why?” His voice was slightly rough. “Do you think I don’t feel it too? It’s obvious from our earlier interaction that I do.”

“We kissed. We don’t have to make it about anything more than that.”

He bent down, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I wanted to devour you. And I don’t usually like vampires as lovers. I wanted to lay you down on the floor and tear off your clothes like an animal. Wanted to sink my teeth into your inner thigh and hear you scream. I wanted to kiss your—”

“Stop.” She put a finger on his lips, but Lucien only opened his mouth and took her finger between his teeth, letting his fangs grow long before her eyes. His unrelenting gaze challenged her control. She was hanging on by a very thin thread. “Lucien, stop.”

He released her finger. “Why?”

“Because I don’t know if I want you or not.”

His hands shot out and gripped her thighs. “Shall I prove you wrong?”

“I know I want someone,” she said. “But are you sure it’s you? Or would anyone in the vicinity cause this reaction at this stage of my development?”

Lucien froze, and Makeda knew she’d made her point.

“I want. My hunger is voracious right now. But I don’t know if it’s because I want you, Lucien Thrax, or whether this is a reaction to the change and my lack of control over my hunger. That is why I ran tonight.”

“Not playing games?”

“I don’t play games. I never have. You told me I could kill indiscriminately right now. Does that apply to other things?”

His jaw clenched and he spoke between gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”

“I want to wait until I do know,” she said. “I’m not a nun, nor am I looking for a husband, but I am discriminating in my partners. I would not choose to have one unless I knew it was me, Makeda, choosing him and not my out-of-control urges.”

He nodded, but his eyes were calculating. “I can respect that.”

“Thank you.”

“But I don’t believe that’s what’s going on.”

She paused and considered his words. “Why not?”

“Because we wanted each other before you became a vampire.”

It was true. They had been antagonistic, but Makeda had been drawn to him from the beginning of their acquaintance, even when he infuriated her.

“You don’t like vampire women,” she said.

“I like you.” His smile bordered on smug. “Don’t change your argument now just because your other one didn’t hold water.”

“You’ve never taken one as a lover,” she said. “I’ve heard the rumors, and you just said so yourself. Were you lying?”

“You heard absolutes when I didn’t say them. I’ve never been attracted to power games. With you, however, that doesn’t seem to apply. You don’t play games. Were you lying?”

“No.”

He reached out and played with a lock of hair curling by her ear as it dried in the cool evening air. “Next argument, yene konjo?”

“We need to focus on the Elixir virus.”

“If we’re so distracted by our attraction to each other, then we’ve no hope of conquering the problem. You can’t think of any problem nonstop or you’ll go mad. Trust me on that one. I’ve hit the edge more than once.”

She was at a loss. One by one, he had demolished every wall she’d built to contain her reaction to him.

“I still think my first argument is valid.” When he opened his mouth to object, she raised her hand. “You don’t believe me. That’s your right. But right now I believe me. I don’t know if this attraction is real or a product of the amnis surging through my system. Until I do know, I’m not comfortable pursuing anything more than a friendly, professional relationship with you.”

She expected him to object when he opened his mouth, but he paused and his eyes turned calculating. “How long?”

“Pardon me?”

“How long until you’ll trust yourself?”

She hadn’t thought of giving herself any kind of deadline. “I don’t know. Didn’t you say the worst of the hunger and mood swings would be over in six weeks?”

“So six weeks?” His eyes gleamed. “That’s only four more.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything, Lucien.”

“I can live with four more weeks.”

He stood, and Makeda could see the outline of his arousal behind the loose pants he wore. He’d stripped off his shirt, and her gaze traveled up his body to the rivulets of water falling down his chest. She could see his tattoos clearly now. Scattered drops on his shoulders mimicked black spots on his chest and shoulders. The water ran over dark chevrons inked on his torso until they formed tiny tributaries that cut and traced over the valleys of his musculature.

She blinked at the memory of rain. Rain hitting glass. Drops tracing down the window…

“Makeda?”

Coursing blood in her system pumped from her heart, through the lungs, carrying vital nutrients through the arteries, the delicate arterioles, the tiny capillaries that fed each cell. Then the steady flow of oxygen-starved blood making its return journey through the veins. An endless system of red cells fed and renewed…

By the source.

“It all goes back to the source,” she murmured, her eyes unfocused.