Page 105 of Alpha Power

"It's roughly 16 hours per limb, give or take a few hours, depending on how old you are," Darius whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

"And how would you know?" Maddox challenged, raising his brows.

Darius flashed his fangs. "I tried it once, a couple years after I turned." He looked down at the table and smirked, consumed by a memory flashing through his mind. "Some smartass humans bet me 100 bucks that I wouldn't do it," he scoffed. "Well, didn'ttheylook stupid."

Void blinked. "You freaking psychopath."

That little twinkle in Darius' eyes made it clear he didn't think it was such a crazy thing to do.

"Leilani attempted to reintegrate herself back into Luther's life after he recovered, but our Lord is not known for giving second chances," Roman continued, ignoring the side conversation entirely.

Yeah, she wasn't surprised to hear that. Luther was totally not the forgiving type.

"For the last 500 years she's done everything she could to get back in his good graces, but Luther was no longer interested. It could never be proven, but we believe she's responsible for the death of several vampire females Luther had relations with."

"You mean women he's fucked?" Zamorra asked brazenly.

Roman shifted uncomfortably in his seat and cleared his throat. "Yes."

Poor behemoth. Roman didn't like sex talk. She figured that out when they went on their little shopping trip. Anytime she even mentioned anything sexual he clammed up and got all flustered. It was cute and made her laugh. Sometimes, she just liked to do it to watch him squirm.

"The relationship between them has been tenuous ever since. Extremely. If it were not for their maker, I am sure they would have killed each other by now."

"Ah. So you know about the whole 'no killing your vampire sibling' thing?"

Roman frowned at her. "They are not siblings."

She waved a hand. "You know what I mean. Do a lot of makers set rules like that?"

"Some," he nodded. "I met a vampire once who told me he couldn't enter New York City because his maker forbade it. I thought he was lying." His thick fingers tapped lightly on the table as he pursed his lips. "He was not."

Okay. That statement made her curious as hell.

"Oh come on, Muscles. You can't say something as intriguing as that and just leave it there. Are you tryin' to drive me crazy here?"

He scowled. "I told you, my name is-"

"Roman, I know," she said, rolling her eyes.

A powerful presence tickled the back of her neck and she knew without even turning around that Luther had chosen to join them. The vampires in the room quickly stood to attention, their chairs scraping across the floor as they shot to their feet and placed their hands behind their backs.

Void rolled his eyes and kicked his feet up onto the table. He jabbed a thick piece of chicken with his fork and dumped it into a blob of gravy. He slurped the gravy off loudly and stuffed the chicken into his mouth without a single care for manners.

Margaret's eyes snapped to Void's feet resting comfortably on the table and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.

Zamorra nudged her uncle in the ribs and inclined her head to the angry vampire glaring at him.

Void gave one of his 'I'm handsome, you can't be mad at me' smiles and slowly lowered his feet back to the ground.

"My Lord," the Elite Guards greeted in unison as they bowed to their king.

Zamorra was seated with her back to the double doors and actively chose not to turn around and greet Luther. She pointed her fork at Roman instead, who stood like a statue near the head of the table. "Don't think this conversation is over, Muscles. I will get that entire story from you."

His blue eyes flicked down to her briefly before his focus returned to the ancient vampire standing behind her.

"Am I interrupting something?" Luther's deep, husky voice called out as he stepped up to the head of the table.

She felt the second his eyes landed on her. Her body heated and a shiver ran down her spine. Would her body ever stop reacting to his presence?