“I am hungry.”
Shivering at his words, she angled her neck and he drank, one of his hands cradling her head as her breath came in harsh gasps and her eager body pumped more and more of her rich, hot blood into his mouth.
He was gentle, didn’t gorge or take more than she could afford to give, and when he was done, he made sure she’d bear no marks. He always treated his food well, aware that without food, he’d die. “Thank you.”
She gripped at his wrist, stars in her eyes. “Will you return?”
“No.” Lying to his food wasn’t good treatment, so he didn’t do it. “Don’t wait for me.”
Two fat tears rolled down her face. Leaving her watching wet-eyed after him, he disappeared back into the woods, rejuvenated from her gift of blood. He’d had countless similar conversations in his lifetime. When he was a child, he’d fed from Dmitri or Raphael or Keir. At the time, he hadn’t understood the depth of the honor he was being given. He’d known only that three men who were very definitely not food, were allowing him to feed from them—as a result, he’d been on his best behavior.
All three were also so powerful that he’d only needed a sip once every two days at most. It would’ve lasted even longer had he been able to feed more deeply, but he’d been small, only able to handle a tiny taste of such potent blood. Dmitri was the one he’d gone to most often. The older vampire had disciplined him more than anyone else, but Naasir liked that, liked knowing Dmitri cared enough to teach him things. When he’d needed to feed, he’d found Dmitri and Dmitri had held out his wrist.
Never once had he withheld it, not even when Naasir was in trouble.
The times when all three men were gone from the Refuge, he was meant to feed from Jessamy, but in his childish mind, he decided she was too weak to spare blood, and so forced himself to drink the bottled backup blood Dmitri stocked for him.
All that changed as he grew into a bigger boy, then almost a man. He’d discovered that girls liked him. And not just girls. Women, too. Vampires, angels, mortals when he snuck out into the world, women of all ages and races were drawn to him. Their scents melted when he neared.
Suddenly, he had more food than he could ever consume, even if he gorged.
Not that he hadn’t tried.
11
After first discovering his sudden irresistibility to women, Naasir had taken advantage. Then, thinking about all the lessons he’d had from Jessamy, and what he’d learned of honor from watching Dmitri, he’d gone to Dmitri and confessed that it was possible he’d inadvertently been compelling women to him. He was unique—even he didn’t know his own capabilities.
Dmitri had treated his worries seriously. Restricting him to bottled blood, Dmitri had gone out and spoken to over fifty women, all of whom had fed Naasir since he started finding his own food. At the end of his investigation, he’d come to Naasir with a lethally amused smile on his face.
“You aren’t compelling anyone, Naasir. The women are all of sound mind and body and recall their encounter with you with pleasure.” A raised eyebrow. “If they weren’t so terrified of me, I think I’d have been bombarded with invitations for you to return any time you feel hungry.”
Dmitri’s laugh had held a vein of sensual cruelty that drew countless women to the man who was Naasir’s father in all the ways it counted. “It appears you have the same effect as a jungle cat on certain women—they find you beautiful and want to pet you, tame you. Having a wild creature at their throats excites them.”
Since Naasir couldn’t be tamed, he wasn’t angered by the women’s thoughts. Their response to him was occasionally annoying though—it made the hunt too easy. Not only that, it was clear that they reacted to him on a purely physical level, without ever knowing anything about who he was as a person.
Andromeda hadn’t liked him or melted for him. She’d fought with him.