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“I was just curious,” I said, hoping she’d leave me alone. “Besides, it’s secured. I’d need a key, which I obviously don’t have.”

Her face grew hard. Jade didnotlike me.

“I didn’t even realize you were in the house with us. This place is enormous. Did I wake you?” I asked, hoping if I appeared I cared about her feelings, she’d back the fuck off.

“Does that bother you, Mercy?” she asked. Her question didn’t sit well with me, but I didn’t want to argue with her at three in the morning.

I’ll talk to Maurice about it.

“No. I just didn’t expect you here, that’s all,” I said. “You startled me.”

She giggled like a little girl and took a step toward me. “You’re not the only one Maurice wants.”

I knew what she meant, and it made me sick. I didn’t want to be here. Not standing in front of her, not even in this damn house.

“Jade, what the hell are you doing?” Maurice asked her, his voice filled with fury and disgust.

“Nothing, Master. I was only stopping her from snooping. She asked about the safe.”

Maurice glared at her. His jaw was clenched, and if looks could have killed … well, Jade would have been long gone. There was no question about the fury that was apparent on his face. “It’s not snooping when it’s your own damn house,” he said through gritted teeth. The moonlight streaming through the windows cast a garish glare on his protruding fangs.

She stopped, her face frozen with fear, and a familiarity with her words struck me like a ton of bricks.

Master.

Where had I heard that?

“Forgive me,” Jade said. “I just came to the kitchen to grab some blood from the fridge. I’ll be leaving now.”

She was afraid of him. No, notscared. She was terrified.

As Jade left, Maurice wrapped his arm around my waist, drawing me in closer as he looked down at me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, placing one hand on my cheek and running his thumb along my jaw. The calming sensation of feeling safe finally came to me. I exhaled slowly as he inched his way closer to me. He removed any free space between us—I could clearly feel his cock, hard and ready for me, as it brushed in between my legs. A tingling sensation spread through me instantly; I loathed the way my body reacted to him when he was this intense. I couldn’t tell the difference between being afraid of him and being protected. “However, though I don’t mind you wandering the house, Jade is right. You’re not to ask about that safe. Understand?”

Maurice, forbidding it with such intensity, made me want to know what was inside even more.

His hand dropped, inching its way to my thigh before his fingers slid underneath my gown. I stilled in my movements, and my breath hitched in my throat. “Maurice, Jade is awake. She could walk back in here.”

He clicked his tongue. “Always so careful, Mercy,” he said, stepping back to give us space. “You’re dating a vampire, darling. Perhaps let loose a little. Or do I have to remind you what life used to be like between us?”

Desire itched beneath my skin, and yet I was terrified.

I craned my neck to look up into his dark eyes as he stepped toward me again. There was something unreadable in his gaze, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He reached out, his long fingers running between the strands of my hair right at the back of my scalp. With a slight tug, he pulled my neck back, keeping it still.

“Years ago, before my father died,” he said, his tone low and dangerous. “He taught me two things that I’ve never forgotten.”

I searched my memories of our life together, and I couldn’t remember any moment he had spoken of his family. He was born near Rome in the thirteenth century, but that was it. Everything else came to me in small slides through my memory, like a film.

Maurice swallowed, drawing me closer. The heat behind his eyes looked desperate and hollow, as if I were the only thing keeping him together. If one of us cracked, the other would fall.

“My father was a well-respected warrior, Mercy,” he continued. “He fought to protect my mother, me, and my brother Colin until his last breath. Though he was not a kind man, often beating my mother until we could no longer recognize her face, he loved me and would have died for all three of us if he had to.”

“That doesn’t sound like someone who loved their wife,” I pointed out the obvious.

“It would appear that way,” he said, chuckling. “Now, wouldn’t it?”

I shook my head. “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

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