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“No lies, ma petite, I can feel your desire.” His tongue flicked across his lips. “I can taste it.”

Great, just great. How do you argue with someone who can feel what you’re feeling? Answer: don’t argue, agree. “Alright, I lust after you. Does that make you happy?”

He smiled. “Yes.” One word, but it flowed through my mind, whispering things that he had not said. Whispers in the dark.

“I lust after a lot of men, but that doesn’t mean I have to sleep with them.”

His face was almost slack, eyes like drowning pools. “Casual lust is easily defeated,” he said. He stood in one smooth motion. “What we have is not casual, ma petite. Not lust, but desire.” He moved towards me, one pale hand outstretched.

My heart was thudding in my throat. It wasn’t fear. I didn’t think it was a mind trick. It felt real. Desire, he called it, maybe it was. “Don’t,” my voice was hoarse, a whisper.

He, of course, did not stop. His fingers traced the edge of my cheek, barely touching. The brush of skin on skin. I stepped away from him, forced to draw a deep shaking breath. I could be as uncool as I wanted, he could feel my discomfort. No sense pretending.

I could feel where he had touched me, a lingering sensation. I looked at the ground while I spoke. “I appreciate the possible fringe benefits, Jean-Claude, really. But I can’t. I won’t.” I met his eyes. His face was a terrible blankness. Nothing. It was the same face of a moment ago, but some spark of humanity, of life, was gone.

My pulse started thudding again. It had nothing to do with sex. Fear. It had a lot to do with fear.

“As you like, my little animator. Whether we are lovers or not, it does not change what you are to me. You are my human servant.”

“No,” I said.

“You are mine, Anita. Willing or not, you are mine.”

“See, Jean-Claude, here’s where you lose me. First you try seducing me, which has its pleasant side. When that doesn’t work, you resort to threats.”

“It is not a threat, ma petite. It is the truth.”

“No, it isn’t. And stop calling me ma fucking petite.”

He smiled at that.

I didn’t want him amused by me. Anger replaced fear in a quick warm rush. I liked anger. It made me brave, and stupid. “Fuck you.”

“I have already offered that.” His voice made something low jerk in my stomach.

I felt the rush of heat as I blushed. “Damn you, Jean-Claude, damn you.”

“We need to talk, ma petite. Lovers or not, servant or not, we need to talk.”

“Then talk. I haven’t got all night.”

He sighed. “You don’t make this easy.”

“If it was easy you wanted, you should have picked on someone else.”

He nodded. “Very true. Please, be seated.” He went back to lean on the desk, arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t have that kind of time,” I said.

He frowned slightly. “I thought we agreed to talk this out, ma petite.”

“We agreed to meet at eleven. You’re the one who wasted an hour, not me.”

His smile was almost bitter. “Very well. I will give you a . . . condensed version.”

I nodded. “Fine with me.”

“I am the new Master of the City. But to survive with Nikolaos alive, I had to hide my powers. I did it too well. There are those who think I am not powerful enough to be the Master of all. They are challenging me. One of the things they are using against me is you.”

“How?”

“Your disobedience. I cannot even control my own human servant. How can I possibly control all the vampires in the city and surrounding areas?”

“What do you want from me?”

He smiled then, wide and genuine, flashing fangs. “I want you to be my human servant.”

“Not in this lifetime, Jean-Claude.”

“I can force the third mark on you, Anita.” There was no threat as he said it. It was just a fact.

“I would rather die than be your human servant.” Master vampires can smell the truth. He would know I meant it.

“Why?”

I opened my mouth to try to explain, but didn’t. He would not understand. We stood two feet apart but it might have been miles. Miles across some dark chasm. We could not bridge that gap. He was a walking corpse. Whatever he had been as a living man, it was gone. He was the Master of the City, and that