She would have rationalized it later, but she would have dragged them into her darkness. She was as selfish as he was.

“I would have done the same,” she whispered. “If it were you dying, I would have done the same.”

He kissed her, and it stole her breath. “Forgive me then,” he said. “Makeda, forgive me.”

“I forgive you.” Tears filled her eyes as she said good-bye to her anger. It felt like the last bit of her human life slipping away. “I forgive you, Lucien.”

He kissed away the tears as they fell to her cheeks. “Wedeshalew, Makeda. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

Lucien let out a breath and pressed his face against her neck. She felt his chest rise as he breathed her in. Felt his body harden against her leg. She tilted her head to the side and pressed his mouth against her neck.

“Makeda?”

“Eternity,” she whispered. “Isn’t that what you want from me?”

“Yes.” His fangs scraped her skin. His knee parted her thighs, and he settled against the cradle of her body.

She was damp from his scent. From the rush of amnis spreading from his body to hers. It burst like tiny kisses over her skin. But even as her body came alive, Lucien waited. He lay poised over her, his mouth against her neck, his arms holding him utterly still as his amnis aroused her and drove her toward madness.

“Take it,” Makeda said. “Now, Lucien.”

“I want everything,” he whispered. “For I am faint with love, most beautiful of women.”

“Then bite.” She closed her eyes and gave in to her instincts. “Take everything.”

He nudged her knee up, opening her as he entered her. Then his fangs slowly pierced the skin of her neck, and everything she was became his. He fisted her hair in his hands, angling her head to the side as he ravished her.

“Lucien!” She cried out as he drank her blood. She could feel her amnis enter him, shooting through his body as he rocked inside her. It was… otherworldly. He released her neck and thrust up, blood staining her lips when he took her mouth. He hooked an arm around her thigh and drove harder.

“Now,” he said.

Knowing what he wanted, Makeda yanked his head to the side and struck. He cried out and arched his back as he came. She could feel his pleasure as her own, and she groaned against his neck. Lucien grabbed her hand and bit her again, sucking on the sensitive skin of her wrist as he drove her higher and higher.

He didn’t stop. He kept going.

Makeda felt as if she were on the edge of leaving her body. Her head swam as their blood and amnis mingled. She sucked harder, feeling the pull of his lips as he took her blood. As she took his.

Don’t stop. Never stop.

She came in a violent wave that drew the water from the air and wet her skin. She kept coming as Lucien roared his final release and collapsed against her. The rock beneath them trembled, shuddered, then stilled.

He remained in her, the frenzy at rest. Hunger assuaged for the moment. Lucien kissed her over and over till their lips were swollen and aching. Makeda held him trapped with her legs. Bound by her arms. She didn’t want to separate from him even for a minute. His blood lived in her as hers lived in him.

They were one.

They were eternal.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Crotone, Italy

The sea was around them, held back by the ancient stone of the fortress that had been Andreas’s prison and Lorenzo di Andros’s grave. Fires burned in the meeting room, food and wine had been laid out, but the scent of old blood could not be erased. Kato sat at the table, Saba at his side as Filomena Salvatore and Emil Conti, the vampire lords of Naples and Rome, sat across from them.

Lucien was aware of his mate when he entered the old castle. Aware of her when he sat down at the table. Aware of her movements when she waited in another part of the castle with Ziri and Arosh. His awareness threatened to overwhelm him.

In another time and another place, he would have stolen her away for weeks. He’d have hidden them in a cave by the sea and let their blood settle as they learned each other and learned who and what they were together. He was no longer alone. She lived in his blood as he lived in hers.

But they didn’t have that time or that space. Their love had been birthed in violence and politics and strife.

You are my peace.

She’d whispered that in Lucien’s ear the night before when she’d taken his blood before she slept at dawn. Lucien had held her as she closed her eyes and he listened to her breath still. Her body fell silent. The only thing he could feel was his blood living in her body, her amnis woven inextricably with his own.

He prayed he would always be her peace, because she had become life to him.

“This council you speak of,” Filomena was saying. “How does it differ from the Athenian council already in place? You ask for tribute and treasure, but what is it you offer to us?”

Lucien would have thought the vampire impertinent if she’d spoken with the attitude he’d expected. But the question, though unforeseen, was spoken with sincerity. Filomena was a new ruler, slowly breaking the insular Neapolitan court of its paranoid tendencies, and Lucien sensed she truly wanted to know what Kato and Saba were offering in exchange for her fealty.

“We offer stability for a region that has too long been rife with infighting and petty jealousies,” Saba said, looking toward Emil Conti. “And opportunity to trade without the onerous hand of the Greek. We are more reasonable, and we have no quarrel with either of you.”