With a wink, he shot me a knowing glare. “You’d enjoy it too much, Siren.”
“Yes, I just live for teeth cutting into my soft flesh, it gets me off, said no man ever.”
“Well, some men—”
“Not now Mason!” I interrupted.
Cassius waved a hand in front of my face, unthawing my body. “She’s scared.”
“Aren’t they taught that we’re attracted to fear?”
Fear after all was the reason that we were in this predicament wasn’t it? Humans were needed in order to keep the immortal race alive — but over a hundred years ago, because of the arrogant asshat Ethan, we’d had trouble calling their numbers again. Meaning that mating with humans to create immortal children had suddenly stopped working. The humans kept dying, and a great chasm erupted between both races. The humans that knew of us and served us still tried to raise their human daughters and sons to please us, but the remaining council members, me included decided that we didn’t want their deaths on our hands, ergo, we allowed ourselves to go extinct. And then Cassius, with his damn hero complex, decided hey why not call one and I’d take her? Only problem? Genesis wanted fang boy, and Cassius was still in love with my adopted sister.
Insert mind-numbing visuals that no brother should ever have to see in his entire existence here.
Long story short, the humans are no longer dying and in order to fight a pissed off fallen angel, all of the council members need to be at their strongest.
Meaning.
I had to mate.
I shuddered for the third time that hour.
Mating with a human was, in my mind, a lot like befriending a sad, blind yet arrogant mouse. No, thank you.
“Yes.” Cassius nodded thoughtfully interrupting my trip down memory lane. His scolding look said it all. Suck it up. Be a team player. Basically, in Cassius speak, he meant, don’t be an ass, aka don’t be yourself. “They are.”
I tried to read the rest of his thoughts, but he blocked me with the precision of a well-practiced creepy old man, damn him.
“Stop knocking. I won’t ever answer.” Cassius grinned. “Now, there are three women. I want you to pick one.”
I pouted.
“One,” he repeated emphasizing the word.
“How about all or nothing?” I offered with a flick of my hand.
“How about I rip your skull from your neck and feed it to the bird outside my window?”
“Tempting,” I croaked. “Very tempting.”
“Go.” Cassius urged. “And remember your powers will be somewhat dwindled behind the cement walls of the room, we don’t want you killing them.”
“Hah, death by orgasm, nice.” I made my way toward the door then froze as Stephanie moved to block my way. “What up, sis?”
“Be nice.” Her eyes swirled white and blue. “Please?”
“I am nice,” I lied.
“You’re manipulative. There’s a difference.”
“Old habits?”
“Just…” She took a deep breath and pressed her hands against my shoulders her fingers digging into my flesh. “Please give this a chance. There’s a war coming, and we need to be strong, every one of us.”
And there it was.
She may as well have taken the weight of both the human and immortal realm and settled it quite nicely on my six-foot-five frame.
Fantastic.
Cassius was our king.
What he said went.
And we weren’t strong on our own, we needed mates.
And because the very idea sent Mason into a pinecone and berry coma where I’m pretty sure he started reverting back to a childlike state as he rocked back and forth in the corner — I offered as tribute, hah, see what I did there?
Damn it, the immortal version of The Hunger Games.
Fight or be killed.
And I couldn’t fight if I was half of the whole I was supposed to be.
I was one of the four oldest immortals, and a council member to boot. My job for centuries had been to make sure that the humans, at least the small percentage that didn’t work for us, had no clue about our existence, and of course to make sure there were no feedings. Of any kind.
Not the vampire kind.
The werewolf kind.
The siren kind. Not that we fed, we typically just had lots and lots of mind blowing sex with anything that looked at us twice, but I digress.
Things had been peaceful.
Until a human was called. That was how we did things; we trained a specific type of human female because it was the only way immortals could mate and the only way to make us stronger. Long story short, she stole Ethan’s heart while thawing Cassius’s, the Dark One currently staring daggers in my direction. And Cassius decided that he didn’t want to live the rest of his life like a jackass and fell in love with my adopted sister, Stephanie, another Dark One.
Technically, their love was forbidden.
But Sariel, one of the only archangels that wasn’t being held captive by the psychopath fallen one Bannik, had given his life for Cassius.
Thus, I tilted my head, nobody really knew what Cassius was or wasn’t. All I knew was that he was powerful, and he’d frozen my ass on more than one occasion.
I sighed.
The last thing I wanted to do was mate with a weak, smelly looking human who only knew about six percent of the hundreds of sexual positions I’d need her to know if she ever had any hope of pleasing me.
I wasn’t an asshole.
I just had needs.