the worst of it. No more sunsets? Phaugh. I saw plenty of them on the farm. But I haven't had a girlfriend since…er…what year is it? Never mind.
"I can't be with a mortal woman, for obvious reasons. She'd never understand what I was, what I needed. I'd constantly fear hurting her—I can lift a car over my head, so being with a mortal woman is not unlike being with a china doll. And being dead hasn't affected my sex drive one bit. I was a young man of lusty appetite, and while I still look young, my appetite has increased exponentially with my age.
"I've only met six other vampires in my life. Of the six, four were women, and let me tell you, they were complete and unrepentant monsters. They ate children. Children!
I killed two, but the other two got away. I could have gone after them, but I had to get the child to a hospital and—well, I wouldn't have wished their company on my fiercest enemy, much less welcomed them to the marriage bed.
"Yes, I'm lonely. Another price to pay for the eternal life and the liquid diet. But I'm young for a vampire—not even close to a hundred yet. Things are bound to look up.
And even if they don't, my patience—like my thirst—is infinite."
Chapter One
A monkey. A fucking monkey!
Janet Lupo practically threw her invitation at the goon guarding the doors to the reception hall. Bad enough that one of the most eligible werewolves in the pack—
the world!—was now off the market, but he'd taken a pure human to mate. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Humans were okay. If you liked sloths.
She stomped toward her table, noticing with bitter satisfaction the way people jumped out of her path. Pack members walked clear when she was in a good mood.
Which, at the moment, she was not.
Bad enough to be outnumbered a thousand to one by the humans, but to marry one? And fuck one and get it pregnant and join the PTA and…
The mind reeled.
Janet had nothing against humans as a species. In fact, she greatly admired their rapaciousness. Homo sapiens never passed up prey, not even if they were stuffed—not even if they didn't eat meat! They'd kill each other over shoes, for God's sake. They had fought wars over shiny metals and rocks. Janet had never understood why a diamond was worth killing over, but a pink topaz was hardly worth sweating about. Humans had fought wars over the possession of gold, but iron ferrite, which looked exactly the same, was worthless.
And when humans started killing, watch out. Whether it was "Free theHoly Land from the infidels!" or "Cotton and Slave's Rights!" or "Down with Capitalism!" or whatever was worth mass genocide, when humans went to war, your only chance was to get out of the way and keep your head down.
But marry one? Marry someone slower and weaker? Much, much weaker?
Someone with no pack instincts, someone who only lived for themself? It'd be—it'd be like a human marrying a bear. A small, sleepy bear who hardly ever moved. Fucking creepy, is what it was.
And there was Alec, sitting at the head table and smirking like he'd won the lottery!
And his mate—uh, wife—sitting next to him. She was cute enough if you liked chubby, which the boys in the pack did. A bony wife wasn't such a great mother when food was scarce. Not that food was scarce these days, but thousands of years of genetic conditioning died hard. Besides, who wanted to squash their body down onto a bundle of sticks?
Okay, there wasn't anything wrong with her looks. Her looks were fine. So was her smell—like peaches packed in fresh snow. And the bimbo knew what she was getting into—her old lady had worked for Old Man Wyndham, way back in the day—so the whole family had experience keeping secrets. But to call a sloth a sloth, the new Mrs.
Kilcurt was not pack. Wasn't family. And would never be, no matter how many cubs Alec got on her.
Jesus! First the pack leader—Michael—knocked up a human, and now Alec Kilcurt.
Didn't any of her fellow werewolves marry werewolves anymore?
"Dance, Jane?"
"I'd rather eat my own eyeballs," she said moodily, not even looking to see who asked. Why was she going to her table, anyway? The reception wasn't mandatory.
Neither was the wedding. She'd just gone to be polite. And the time for that was done.
She turned on her heel and marched out. The goon at the door