Page 62 of Smoke and Lure

“They run faster, are stronger, and can heal relatively quickly compared to other humans.The longer they are Prime, the fiercer they become, and they can hold their own quite well under certain circumstances with some Were.They have a small amount of venom in their blood.A little more than what would have been mixed within the mark on the inside of your thigh.In small doses, our venom can make the Prime superhuman.However, they can’t take too much, or it will kill them.So, we have to be very careful with them.”

Standing in the doorway, she folded her arms under her breasts and didn’t miss the heat that flared in Amaros’s eyes when he lowered his gaze to the gap between the lapels that revealed quite a bit of the inside curve of both her small breasts.Usually, the caress of his gaze caused her desire to spike, but her mind was distracted by the two things she remembered he’d mentioned.

“If a human can’t take but so much venom without dying, how am I alive?”Michaela recalled the sting of Amaros’s bite in the cave and the feel of her life being drawn out of her veins, but just before she lost consciousness from the lack of blood, the icy burn of something entering her body, and streaming into her veins brought on a perplexing sense of peace.

“Some would say you aren’t, little angel.”

The wicked smile on his perfectly-sculpted mouth made her want to kiss him, but she stayed where she stood, framed by the doorway.

She frowned, so confused.“Am I?”

“Yes.And no.”He waved her over, even as he balanced his tall, lean-muscled frame with his hips on the marble counter.

Michaela didn’t hesitate, this time, to cross to him.

Amaros reached up to caress down the side of her face.At her chin, he gently turned her face away from him.“What do you see?”

Slightly arching her brow, she stared at him from the corner of her eyes.“You.”

“I know I am hard to resist, but not me, little angel.What else?”

Cocky-ass vamp.But he wasn’t lying.When Amaros was in the room with her, she could not look at anything else but him.Not even the beautiful landscape of the forest or the breathtaking mountains with their high peaks designing the sky around them held her attention.But following his instructions, she forced her gaze from the striking male before her and stared beyond his shoulder.

She gasped.

Staring at the mirror behind him, she was shocked to see the back of Amaros’s thick, sleek, ebony hair and the shirt stretching over the broad expanse of his shoulders and down his back to his narrow waist and hips covered by dark slacks.

Even last night, with all the lascivious things he’d done to her, the man had remained dressed.It had grated on her because she wanted to see all of him, touch his skin, and have it against hers.

Now, Amaros wasn’t all she saw.Her reflection stared back at her.Besides the wildness of her short, bleached-out blonde pixie cut that made her appear as if she’d been passionately pleasured last night within an inch of her life, she looked the same.But different.Her pale, golden-brown skin had a healthy, vibrant glow, and her light-brown eyes appeared exotic.Looking closely, she could see the finest trace of a blood-red ruby ring around them.

The bloodlust of her beast was never far away.It was the conductor of the symphony of her being.

“I can see us.But I thought storybooks reported that Vampires were walking dead, so they didn’t have reflections.”

Amaros chuckled.“Human bullshit.What they don’t understand or know, they fabricate a tale to cover their ignorance.”

He stroked the side of her neck but didn’t go any further.

Her heart rate picked up at her need for more of his touch, and she saw the flash of the finest blood-red, ruby ring around her irises before it disappeared.

She pushed her lust away.

“It’s easy to believe what you say, especially since I’ve been the victim of some of my government's lies that they fed to me and the other women in the lab.Yeah, easily makeup shit that fits their narrative.”

“It is easier to think of us as living in the in-between.We still have flesh and bone, but as we age, we learn to manipulate it.”

One moment, he was before her, and then she stared at herself draped in ribbons of black smoke.

Only to have him appear behind her, his hands on her slim hips, his lips whispering along the juncture between her neck and shoulders.“I can’t wait to taste you here again.”

Her heart pounded as she met his piercing gray gaze in the mirror.Do it.

Amaros smiled as she drew away from her flesh.Not yet.

A roar of frustration burned in the back of her throat.She swallowed it and reached out, trying to capture the fading airy tendrils.“When can I transport from one place to another and make smoke rings?”

“Centuries.”

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