Page 56 of Spooks & Specters

“You worry too much,” Raven said, patting Felix on the cheek.

Felix had short dark brown hair, blue eyes, and dimples when he smiled. He was one of Raven’s soldiers and had somehow ended up being a close friend.

“And you don’t worry enough.”

“Because you do enough for both of us.” Raven tugged Felix toward the dance floor. “Come, let’s dance.”

He dragged Felix into the mass of wiggling bodies. The humans who mingled here who did not know of the paranormal world often came dressed as what they imagined vampires were, meaning fake fangs and red contacts.

It was also why Raven didn’t require his vampires to address him by his title when they were out in public. He didn’t need the constant reminder of who he was. He already knew he was the most powerful vampire in the Area.

An Area was a vampire’s territory. Any outside vampires, visiting or otherwise, were bound to the laws of that Area. Upon visiting, a vampire was required to make themselves known to the Master.

Drinks and food at his club fit the whole dark, vampiric vibe. Of course, there were drinks that actually did contain real blood, but those were not handed out to humans. There was no point in wasting such a precious substance. Vampires were unable to eat, but they could consume a liquid as long as there was blood in it.

Several of his coven worked here, and many were in their true form, and absolutely nobody batted an eye at it. And why should they? According to humans, there was no such thing as vampires.

Raven shoved all thoughts out of his head as he bumped and grinded on the dance floor, Felix danced close by, but the tenseness that had invaded Raven lately would not leave. Several of his soldiers had also joined him, although none of them actually danced with him.

Raven was a firm believer in not mixing business with pleasure. In other words, he did not have sexual relations with members of his coven. He had done so in the past, and it had never worked out. Hard feelings and petty jealousies were a poison his coven did not need; thus, he did not fuck his members. The human feeders were different.

A vampire’s bite could bring great pleasure or great pain, depending on which the vampire desired. Feeders were very aware of this and chose pleasure. That pleasure often led to sex. But his feeders had enough sense not to let feelings get involved. And if they did grow between a vampire and a human, the couple usually became monogamous so there wouldn’t be problems.

Did Raven have sex with his feeders? Some of them, yes. Did he care for them? Of course he did. Did he love them? No. He cared for them, he provided for them, he took care of them, and he would either turn them or set them free when their contract ended, but that was the extent of it.

None of them were his beloved—the person that he would spend the rest of immortality with. His soulmate. His everything. And so far, he had not met that person.

Not even Andrew, the human who had broken Raven’s heart, was his beloved.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Andrew had not broken his heart. More like he had slightly dented Raven’s ego. The cute little feeder had been Raven’s favorite, and Andrew had been well aware of it.

Then a vampire came before Raven for permission to visit his territory—which was San DeLain—and Andrew turned out to be that vampire’s beloved. Of course Raven would not stand in the way of true love. No honorable vampire would. Fine, he was jealous. Stark raving jealous of how the visiting vampire had reacted as soon as he had laid eyes on Andrew and how Andrew had responded.

Before the visiting vampire could do something stupid, like challenge Raven for Andrew, Raven had released Andrew from his contract, gifted him a tidy sum of money, and wished him well.

Raven had still been in a pissy mood when he had attended the first meeting of the leaders of San DeLain at Isadora’s restaurant. He had almost ended up on the wrongside of a very powerful paranormal leader—the Elder of the San DeLain daemons—because of Kage’s little human mate. He actually didn’t know who was scarier—Kage or Isadora.

Seriously, it was a toss-up. Neither of them could end Raven’s immortal life without a certain weapon that was practically impossible to find nowadays, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t make him suffer.

But that would cause his vampires to retaliate, and nobody wanted a war. They all had enough problems with the hunters currently in San DeLain.

But Raven had acted like an ass about Austin, and then he’d gotten his ass handed to him verbally, so to speak. More like he got his ego handed to him, which had been a hard pill to swallow, considering he was the strongest vampire in that Area.

But if another paranormal leader had treated his beloved the way he had treated Austin, Raven would’ve reacted the same way Kage had, so he didn’t have anyone to blame for his actions that night but himself. He was vampire enough to admit he’d messed up.

Still, it wasn’t something he liked to think about, even if it had all worked out and Nox was now dead.

A human male danced in front of Raven, his hands wandering over Raven’s chest possessively. There was a promise in his eyes that interested him. Now this… this was something he was more than happy to think about. He might take the human up to his office and fuck his brains out. In fact, it was rather tempting and might help him get out of his head for a bit.

Fortunately, he had already fed, so that was not a worry. At his age, blood rarely tempted him anymore. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time it had. Actually, very little interested him much anymore.

And why the hell was he thinking about that when he had this tasty human in front of him?

Chapter Two

RAVEN SWUNG the guy around and moved in behind him as the song ended. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“What’s it?” the man asked over his shoulder as another song pounded to life.

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