Her hand lay limp at her side and Lucien took it, tracing the fine veins that rose like rivers beneath her skin. He didn’t know what she wanted or needed from him, so he just listened.

“I got off the phone with Dr. McTierney and looked around the lab.” She swallowed. “I realized there was nothing more for me to do, so I walked around the island. Then I walked again. And again. And again. And… I started to realize that this is what my life is now. Every night. Waking in darkness. Going in circles. Years passing. Decades. And eventually, I would be completely alone.”

“Never,” Lucien whispered. “You’ll never be—”

“My family will die. My mother and father I expected, of course. Every child faces that. But my sisters. Their husbands.” She paused. “Then their children. Even their grandchildren. They will all die. And I will be left alone.”

Lucien didn’t remember his human family. He was the second son of his father and not the heir to any land. Lucien hadn’t been expected to have a wife or children. He’d been expected to be a warrior. When he’d died and been reborn, he’d left nothing behind.

“Did you truly want children?” he asked softly.

“Yes.” She paused. “I don’t know. Maybe not. But the possibility was still there.”

“You can still be a mother, Makeda. Look at Saba.”

“It’s not the same.”

“No, I suppose not.” He laid his head down next to hers, rubbing his cheeks on her curls. “I love your hair. Have I told you that? Do I pull it at night?”

“No. You’re easy to sleep with. You never bother me.”

Then clearly I’m doing something wrong.

Lucien didn’t say that.

“This is my fault,” he said. “You’re too isolated here. Your geography is limited. Your circle of companions is limited. I should have recognized that and—”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Don’t try to absolve me,” he said. “It is my fault. I’ve been so focused on work I haven’t been taking care of you.”

“Kato is—”

“You are not Kato’s responsibility.”

She finally turned to look at him. “I don’t want to be your responsibility either, Lucien. I don’t want to be an obligation.”

“Makeda…” He breathed in her scent, the subtle play of pheromones mixed with her skin and hair. The orange oil in her soap and the cinnamon in her toothpaste. Aromas he’d now associate with her for eternity. “Don’t you know you are far more than an obligation to me?”

“Am I?” Her eyes and voice dared him. “Or am I a challenge? A vampire to seduce for variety? To prove you can? Because you have a type, Lucien, and I am not it. I stopped being anything close to it when my heart stopped beating. So why me? What makes me so special?”

He smiled. “Everything.”

“Nothing. You didn’t order Baojia to change me because of some great passion. You aren’t madly in love with me, and you never were. So what about me is special? Nothing. And once we leave this place, I won’t be in your face every night, you’ll grow tired of the challenge, and you’ll move on to something else.”

He propped up his head and looked at her. “You’re not going to believe anything I say, are you?”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m not a liar, and I never have been. I told you I needed you.”

“Because I’d made a breakthrough.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Is that what I meant?”

Makeda frowned. “You said I might be the only chance of curing this disease.”

“And I was right. You were the one who found the solution.”

She said nothing, clearly trying to reconcile his words and his coldness the night she’d been changed.

He leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. “Let me remind you what I said next. ‘Did you think I was going to let you just die?’ Did you, Makeda?”

The memory of his terror the night she’d lain twisted on the cliffs collided with his fear from the previous dawn. “When I tell you I ordered Baojia to change you because you matter—because you’re unique—you should believe me.”

Her eyes were a riot of confusion. “Self-delusion doesn’t count as honesty.”

So stubborn. He smiled. “Skeptic.”

“Yes.”

“I do think I’ll enjoy proving you wrong, Dr. Abel.”

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy trying, Dr. Thrax.”

He leaned down and captured her mouth with a grin still on his face, delighted by her skepticism. He didn’t try to make his kiss fleeting or easy as he had before. Lucien took her mouth boldly, biting her lips until she let him in. His tongue delved into the heat of her mouth and he fantasized about tasting other lips, imagined her shaking and weak beneath him when he brought her to orgasm. He wanted to make her crazy with lust, then watch as she abandoned the control she wrapped like armor around her.

He would seduce her body as she’d seduced his mind. He’d teach her the pleasures of an immortal lover. Teach her how he filled long nights when he had leisure. He’d tease her body for hours, prolonging her release until she was begging for his bite.

And Makeda would bite him.

His body grew impossibly aroused at the memory of her teeth in his neck. It had been far more intoxicating than he’d imagined. The pull of her lips against his skin and her tongue licking his blood. He’d felt her bite with a thousand nerves brought suddenly and violently to life.