Page 14 of Sylas's Captivating Mate

After another quick goodbye kiss, he walked out of the library and headed to the foyer. There was a monitor next to the large double doors that showed the exterior view, from the stairs to the sidewalk, and down both sides of the building. There was a microphone image on the bottom right corner.

A small group of people were outside.

“The club’s closed,” he said, after pushing the button.

“Come on,” a male said, lifting his head and looking into the camera. “We just want a drink and to dance.”

“There are signs everywhere outside,” Sylas said. “The club is closed, and you shouldn’t even be near the building. You literally stepped over the do-not-cross caution tape.”

“Let us in,” a female said. “It’s not fair to close the club, we just want to have fun.”

He was about to answer, when he had the strangest feeling.

The back of his neck tingled in awareness. He stared at the monitor and realized the group of people were all fidgeting and looking around nervously, and they weren’t dressed to go to a club.

He spun to go to Georgia when he felt an intense and powerful fear eclipse him, nearly bringing him to his knees. As abruptly as the fear happened, it ceased entirely and he gasped, his heart pounding.

He’d been feeling Georgia’s fear.

And now he didn’t feel anything.

“Georgia!”

Chapter Seven

Georgia had been in the kiss library once when she’d had her name added to the membership list. She’d been really impressed by the library, which was a large room with floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with books related to vampires in general and the kiss itself, such as membership lists, laws, and history.

It took her a long moment to find the membership book, but she found it next to the law books. The large volume had been started a few hundred years ago by the original master of the kiss. Before modern times, vampires were added to kiss membership by vowing themselves and their immortal lives to the master, and often involved some kind of brand or tattoo. She was thankful all she’d had to do to join with Caleb was promise not to be an ass or a criminal.

Her thoughts drifted to Sylas as she set the book on a small table. She didn’t know when he’d want her to turn him. It wasn’t a difficult process, it just involved opening his veins to drain his body of blood, and then feeding him her blood. He’d sleep for a day or so while his body turned, and then he’d wake up a vampire. There was a learning curve when it came to feeding from humans without taking too much. Vampires had to have blood every day to survive since they didn’t eat regular food. Real blood or synthetic would sustain them. They’d use banked blood that the kiss provided. She kept a supply in her freezer for days when she wanted real blood instead of the substitute.

Pulling her train of thought back to the matter at hand, she opened the membership book and turned the old, yellowed pages carefully. She’d talk to Sylas about the turning process and when he wanted to do that later. For now, she was going to focus on figuring out which original people were part of the current kiss.

After a lot of page turning, she found the membership list from the year Caleb took over. The original master’s name was Greaves. If she recalled her kiss history correctly, he took over from the previous master who’d been killed during a territory battle, and while Greaves hadn’t killed him, he’d claimed the leadership anyway and was crazy and dangerous and killed anyone who went against him.

She was thankful Caleb was a kind and protective master. He always had the kiss’s best interests at heart.

She opened her phone and took a photo of the membership list which spanned two pages. There were forty-seven members in the kiss when Caleb took over. She turned the page to see the current membership list, using her finger and thumb to make the image of the other list large enough so she could read it.

At the top of the new membership list was Caleb, followed by the members who stayed. She used the editing tool on her photo app to cross off the names from the original list who hadn’t stuck around when Caleb took over. The current list had been added to many times, including when Georgia joined as well as when Lia mated Caleb and became the kiss mistress.

It didn’t take her long to get through the list and compare it, just a few minutes in fact. She could hear Sylas talking to someone and suspected it was whoever had knocked on the club door. Probably some idiot humans who couldn’t read the closed signs.

A name appeared two times on the membership list.

Devon Mallard.

It had been on the original membership list and the name had migrated to be part of the kiss under Caleb, but the male had left a month later, his name crossed off in red ink with the date.

But he’d come back to the kiss a few weeks ago.

She frowned, her mind spinning. She remembered when he came to the offices and asked to join the kiss, because Lia had asked her to arrange for a money transfer to help Devon with moving expenses from his current kiss to Belle Terra.

But he’d already been part of the kiss before?

She didn’t remember anyone mentioning that.

His was the only name that had been part of the original kiss, stayed with Caleb, left, and then joined again. Hell, it was suspicious simply that he’d joined up a few weeks ago and the issues had been happening so recently.

---