Page 1 of Slake His Thirst

Chapter One

Lucius

Lucius gripped the stone balustrade as he sent his senses out to the jungle and down the sheer, jagged cliffs to the rough seas below his suite. The dense forest was bathed in silver moonlight, and nothing that shouldn’t have been there lurked in the shadows. Something had drawn him outside. Twin dots of crimson caught his eye, and the faint whisper of sulfur drifted in the breeze that brushed over his bare chest. The hellhound was close to his side of the resort, which meant a new guest had arrived. The beasts prowled the island until called to scan any new guests for malicious intent. No one was allowed entry to the exclusive resort without their inspection.

He stalked to the other side of the balcony, where he could see the point where the jungle edged the secluded corner of the gothic-inspired resort.

The horizon was a soft layer of blues and purples—the perfect time to impress a new arrival. He shifted his gaze from darkening skies to the stone terrace where guests were teleported in. He noted the sleek black blur of a hellhound bounding back into the tree line. A blonde stood with a single guard, who would have overseen the hound’s task. Lucius tilted his head and wondered who she was. She seemed to have arrived alone. The mortal guests who paid exorbitant fees for the pleasure of consorting with his kind usually brought an entourage. Even from a distance, he could see that the woman was beautiful. The soft waves of her long blond hair whipped around smooth skin, and her snug jeans and low-cut top clung to slight curves.

Had she come there to live out some vampire fantasy? There were a lot of pleasurable rooms inside for just that. As a rule, Immortals were far more sexual than humans, so the carnal activities of mortals rarely raised an eyebrow for them.

Immortal males had once been ruled by sex—they’d needed it to maintain their strength, which meant thousands of years of experience in experimentation. He thanked fuck that particular curse had lifted with all the divine power released to save the world over three decades ago.

Until then, humans had been unaware of the existence of magic, so the fact that gods and creatures of their highly inaccurate myths were real had come as an even greater shock. Gods and warriors fought and saved the world, and their battles had streamed over mortal media. Some of mankind were adapting well to all the new magic, but others struggled, fearing what they didn’t understand.

It would likely take another fifty years or more for them to come to terms with such a radical new existence. Until then, he and his brethren kept to themselves when in the mortal realm. The disparity between the populations of mortals and Immortals was too great to ignore. There were two gods and Immortals with numbers in the hundreds versus mortals, both humans and Mageia—mortals with inherited magical abilities—with populations in the billions. Immortals were stronger and more powerful, as well as ancient enough to see the value in balancing public relations while safeguarding their interactions with mortals. Lucius’s father had opened Slake resort mere years after the end, and the venue had gone a long way toward showing humans that Immortals weren’t the monsters under the bed.

His race seemed to attract the most interest from mortals, but the similarities to “vampires” were superficial. They did have fangs as well as light sensitivity that came with excellent night vision, and they were skilled in telepathy. But Aletheia weren’t dead, they didn’t drink blood unless it was to gain someone’s memories, and they certainly didn’t sparkle.

The woman looked up and directly at him at that moment, and he felt the air still for a single beat. He breathed in the salty air as if her scent would come to him. The wind shifted suddenly, blowing toward her. He tracked her movements until she disappeared from his line of sight, wondering why he was so drawn to her. The stone railing cracked before he realized he’d tightened his hold.

Without even glancing at the security schematics he’d been drawing up, he stalked to his room and changed from the soft cotton pants he’d put on after his shower into jeans and a black T-shirt. In seconds, he moved back through his sitting area and out the door, unsure what he meant to do.

Soft light bathed the hallway lined with antique tables and ancient tapestries. He nodded at the guards he passed on his way to the main floor. He wanted to see her.

Before he made it to his destination, his sister turned down the corridor, heading in his direction. Some odd instinct said to keep going, but he hadn’t seen her yet—he’d gone straight to his suite when he’d returned from the Immortal Realm. He smiled as they met at the entrance to the security room. Kaia’s auburn hair was back in a ponytail, and she wore a sleek black suit that signaled she was on duty.

“I thought you were with Father for the next week. Is he back too?” Her beautiful features were a mask of calm, but it was a lie.

He eyed her closely. “What are you up to, Kaia?” His little sister had never been able to hide things from him, so why was she attempting just that?

Kaia’s eyes flashed, and he saw the hint of fang peek out over her bottom lip.

His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile at the sign of frustration she hadn’t mastered masking in all the thousands of years she’d lived. A part of him hoped she never grew out of it. The odd compulsion to see the new guest hounded him, but it would have to wait. At the moment, he needed to see what trouble his sister had gotten into while she’d been in charge.

“I hate when you do that.” There was a small growl in her tone. “Since you’ll dig until you figure it out, I’ll tell you. I authorized a visit from Calista’s sister.”

He frowned. “The snake dancer?” He brought up a mental image of long, dark braids and chocolate skin. He was aware that his sister had formed a friendship with the female entertainer. A part of him wondered at the magic the Mageia wielded. Calista was able to enthrall an entire room full of deadly snakes while dancing.

“Tell me about the sister,” he said as he stepped into the security room at Kaia’s side. Screens filled the walls with video surveillance of the entire resort, the clubs, the corridors and entrances, and the jungles beyond. He didn’t believe in overkill and had designed the security with both magic and technology.

She didn’t reply.

“What aren’t you saying?” He wasn’t in the mood to dig up the information himself, so he leaned back against a desk and pinned her with a look.

“Calista’s sister used to be a bounty hunter. Used to be. She owns a bar in New Orleans now.” Mageia policed their own, as did Immortals and humans. He crossed his arms over his chest, taking a deep breath. There were defined no-entry parameters to protect their guests and themselves. Bounty hunters, ex or otherwise, should automatically have been denied access to the island.

“I’m guessing you didn’t just authorize her entry. She’s already here,” he said with a hard stare.

“Yes, and I’ve made arrangements to have her watched the entire time, even though Calista gave her word her sister wouldn’t cause any trouble.”

“Are there any guests with a price on their head?” Background checks weeded out that kind of thing, so he doubted they had a problem there unless someone else authorized a special guest.

“There are not. That’s why I didn’t see a problem.”

Bounty hunters were damned mercurial, and he could only imagine what kind of trouble one could get into when they were surrounded by the rich and famous of their world. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Show me everything you have on the woman.”

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