"Please, don't get up." I sat across from him.He placed the book he was reading on the side table. "Is everything okay?" he asked."I'm worried about Paul."Mei Wah nodded. "Oh. Yes. He lost much blood and he lost it quickly. But he will recover in short order. I made a special soup that will fortify his blood.""How close did he come to dying?""Close enough that I would not let him go home in case he got hurt and lost more blood. He has no reserve. Do not feed from him for one week."I sighed."Don't be hard on yourself, Miss Kim. Many newbies kill their first food. It's pretty obvious that you really care for Mr. Paul. He will be all right.""Tony freaking out that he stayed?""Tony left as soon as he awoke. He will not return for a couple of days. He said that you and Mr. Paul could make yourself comfortable here and that I was to take you anywhere you needed." I wondered how much of what Mei Wah had said was his own polite interpretation."What I need is to get to tho

He straightened up. "I've been thinking about this a lot. Tony told you that you can shield yourself, hide your glow after feeding and cloak yourself so that you can't be read. It's something they do intuitively. But I think it's something you should be able to teach yourself. Then maybe when you feed, you won't feel everything so strongly." He shrugged. "Not that I mind for myself, but since I have to share you, I've been thinking about self-meditation techniques that might help.""I think I understand. How would it work?""After I'd made my first million, I was under quite a bit of stress.""You're first million?" I said."Well, yeah." He at least had the nerve to look sheepish when he said it. "I started to meditate. I even spoke to a guru. He taught me that if you can make your mind blank, then you can build whatever ideas or concepts into it. You said that Tony told you that feeding wasn't about sex unless you chose it to be.""Yeah. But Alexis said that I had more succubae i

With an effort I pressed the tip of my tongue over the wounds in her neck until the blood stopped coming.I looked at Paul as I released her. He helped Monica to sit on the cushions. I had taken much more from her, and her eyes looked glazed. "How are you holding up?" he asked. "I think it's working. I feel a little ..." I couldn't describe it. Not horny but excited, but not anything like what usually happened. Of course I was cutting the feedings down to only a minute or two.Karen came to me anxiously. She took off her jacket and draped it carefully over the chaise. She swept her hair over her shoulder and closed her eyes.Because I was already feeling heated, I pictured the wall even before I touched her. In my mind Karen placed her hand on one side of the wall. I placed my hands on the other. We both pushed against it, but it wouldn't budge. I lowered my head and fed. Now it wasn't about satisfying my hunger. Now I fed to fill myself. I tried to picture the white wall once

Paul was always there for me.He was the one I could count on with the important as well as mundane things. Paul was the one who made me laugh. And even though he didn't have any otherworldly power, he never hesitated to stand by my side to protect me. Let's face it—Paul looked awesome in a towel.I felt elated that I had come to terms with my feelings. I still felt something for Tony, but it was clouded with distrust. It wasn't that he kept secrets from me. I felt that this Vampire was too much of a mystery for me. Paul felt safe. I smiled, stood, and thought about him—his taste, his smell, his looks. I recalled his quiet cries as he came against me, and then I clearly had his link in my grasp. If he still wanted me, I would be his.I sped to his home. When I felt overcome with the sounds of the outside world, I found I could push the voices into the background and eventually ignore them. It was Paul's technique that helped me. Later, we could practice with my teeth.I found mysel

"Alexis?" He raised his eyebrow.I told him briefly about my relationship with Alexis. Tige frowned. "What?" I asked."Having a close personal relationship with an Elder is a double-edged sword." Alexis had implied the same thing. "Why?""Alexis was a human for thirty years," Tige said. "Not much more than that. He's been Neratomay for twelve hundred years. I don't think he's capable of understanding human emotions anymore. Alexis is moved by nothing more than what amuses him. You having his attention only means that you will be his plaything when he desires it." I let my mind remember the way Alexis had held my face in the palms of his hands ... "Plaything? What do you mean?""His pet. He has had a number of pets."You can be my pet ... What the fuck did that mean? He'd also said that I could be his lover, but he was trying to figure things out in his head. I understood Tige's words but felt they didn't match Alexis'. I didn't want to know about this pet thing, and I didn