Third, the new vamp in her liked that idea a lot.

Alejandro had gone rigid against her. He gripped her so hard he was cutting off the circulation to her arm.

Daria stared at them, taking a more critical look. Were they slaves or were they donors? The line was thin, but oh so important. Were they there by choice, addicted yet retaining their free will? Or had they been pressed into service, abused, and enslaved?

They appeared healthy, clean, and happy to be there. Their eyes lacked the rabid, mindless need for veil present in abused slaves. Yet, they wore chains. Maybe that was just affectation.

Daria just wasn’t certain.

Carlos made a sweeping gesture, and said something she couldn’t understand. The initiates all moved forward and she did too, propelled mostly by Alejandro’s arm around her. She fought the urge to dig her heels in with everything she had.

Daria didn’t want to feed from them, even though her hunger definitely thought she should. Damn it! She couldn’t lose it now. She had to convince these Chosen she was one of them. She had to allow her hunger to win this battle.

A little hesitation could be explained by her being an infant vamp. A lot of hesitation would be suicide.

She watched the succubare male select a woman with long blond hair. She was perhaps in her twenties. When she realized she was being selected, the expression on her face became rapturous. Her beautiful features transformed into pleasurable anticipation and gratitude.

Was that her natural reaction? Was she so deeply veil-addicted that she would place herself in chains and allow a succubare male to feed from her lust? Or maybe these humans were under a veil right now. Carlos’s, perhaps, or Sante’s. A powerful mind trick to make them seem more willing than they were.

At the thought of Christopher Sante, she raised her gaze to search the crowd. Was Sante here right now, watching them? It was impossible to know. She didn’t dare try to open her line of communication with Alejandro now, too afraid she’d slip and broadcast to the room at large.

The succubare drew the blond woman with the rapturous expression to her feet. After kissing her gently on the lips, he undid the ties of the long, multicolored skirt she wore. It dropped to the floor at her feet, revealing her smooth-shaven mound. She wore no panties. Apparently, they were going to go at it right here and now. Great.

In spite of herself, Daria’s breath caught as the succubare’s hand slipped between the woman’s thighs and moved. He caressed her there until she moaned and her body tensed, until a needful expression enveloped her face. When the woman was ready, the succubare undid the buttons of his pants, pulled his hard cock out, and slid his hand under the woman’s knee to hook her leg over his waist.

The muscles of his backside flexed as he pushed inside her cunt. Under the influence of his veil, the woman came immediately, her eyes rolling back into her head. The succubare kept her there in a state of ecstasy, fucking her until he’d drank his fill.

Someone in the crowd moved, catching her eye. Two men trapped a woman between their bodies, though she looked happy to be there. The man in back eased his arms around her, his hands finding the hem of her shirt and pushing beneath it to fondle her breasts. The man in front of her yanked her skirt up to her waist, revealing her mound. Apparently, she didn’t believe in underwear. He undid his belt and lowered his pants, exposing the jut of his cock. While the Chosen behind her held her, the one in front spread her thighs and forced his cock deep inside her cunt.

Well. Not much foreplay there, but the woman looked like she was feeling no pain. Her face had relaxed into a picture of erotic enjoyment as the first man fucked her harder and faster while the second caressed her breasts.

In fact, now that Daria looked around, many of the observers had lapsed into erotic interludes of twos, threes, sometimes fours.

Daria couldn’t stop the slow slide of her own body into arousal. Her mind knew it was wrong to be getting excited watching others go at it, especially under these circumstances, but she couldn’t help her response. It was borne of her Choosing, of her new status as vampire. Her body felt ripe for sexual experimentation. Hell, she craved it.

One of the female vamps in Daria’s group moved, breaking everyone’s focus on the erotic displays around them. She knelt in front of a middle-aged woman with short dark hair. The other female vampire selected a man.

Brandon knelt in front of a young woman who had vibrant green eyes that seemed to retain a definite spark of free will. He stroked her face with his palm and she tipped her head back, offering her throat, and sighed in anticipation.

Veilhounders getting their fix. Honestly, they didn’t look like they’d been forced to be here. She could scent no fear on them, nothing other than desire. Perhaps they were donors paid by the Shining Way, paid to be addicted toys for their members.

Carlos touched her arm, making her jump. “If you delay too long, you will be required to take the leavings.”

Was that like table scraps? God.

Her gaze focused on the remaining slaves, hunger shooting pains through her stomach. She had to do this. There was no escape. She had no choice. A part of her, a deep, dark part, was happy about that. The rest of her was disgusted and resigned.

Alejandro released her. He walked to a middle-aged woman with long dark hair and drew her to her feet. She beamed like she’d won the intergalactic lottery and instantly offered him her jugular. Alejandro waited several moments before placing his hands to her upper arms to keep her steady while he fed. The woman whimpered, but Daria didn’t think it was from fear. More like impatience.

She caught the eye of one of the remaining humans, who gazed upon her with undisguised lust. Clearly he anticipated her Chosen fangs upon him. Such trust the humans had in them. Their submission seemed so foolhardy. Weren’t the humans afraid that they, the vampires, would go too far? That they’d drain them? Kill them?

Daria’s breath caught in her throat. That was the very first time she’d thought of herself as a Chosen and not a human. It was the first time she’d put things in terms of them versus us and put herself on the bloodsucking side.

Alejandro tipped his head back. She watched his fangs extend. He lowered his mouth to the woman’s throat and pierced her skin. There was no seduction. No prelude. This was nothing like what she’d seen him do with the woman at the Blood Spot. Alejandro was all about business today, though he hadn’t hesitated even a moment before he’d bitten. The dark-haired woman moaned low in her throat and crushed herself against him.

A thread of something other than a thought came to her from Alejandro. Euphoria. Ecstasy. Exhilaration.

Daria took a step back, understanding that Alejandro took extreme pleasure in biting the woman. The hunger tightened in her stomach and she wanted nothing more than to deny it. She never, ever wanted to know the same kind of bliss from drinking a human’s blood that Alejandro now knew.

She’d been a Galactic Patroller. Now she was an agent with the ABI. It was her job to protect humans, not treat them like cattle. This was wrong, fundamentally. Though her Chosen-ness disputed that truth, creating a war inside her.

Daria wondered if she’d feel differently if she’d been marked. Maybe if she’d been born with the DNA she’d be all right with treating human beings like food.

“Valerie.” Carlos’s voice close to her ear. “Time to feed.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Was this another test? If it was, she could not fail it.

Focusing her attention on a thirty-something man with auburn hair, she walked to him and sank to her knees.

The expression on his face remained neutral, but his dark blue eyes shone brightly. With what, Daria didn’t know. Fear? Anticipation? Resignation? She wished she could ask him, but that would not be wise. She could feel Carlos behind her, watching.

The man’s lips parted and he tipped his head to the side, offering her his throat. So meek. So submissive.

She wanted an answer to that indefinable emotion in his eyes before she bit him. Reaching out with her mind, she sensed the man as she did the vampires and succubare around her. A tendril of eagerness and hope wrapped around her. She sipped his expectancy like a fine wine. It spread over her tongue and made the hunger scream. He wanted her to bite him. He couldn’t wait for it.

This was a donor, not a slave.

There was no pain here, no limp lack of will. Addiction, yes, but this man still retained his sanity . . . and he knew what he desired.

In response, the hunger speared through her belly and she drew him into her arms. His chains jangled as he reached out and twined his fingers into the material of her T-shirt. “Please,” he whispered.

What about the veil this man so desperately wanted? She didn’t know how to use hers. She didn’t even know if she had any. When she caught sight of the pulsing vein in his throat, the question ceased to be relevant. Daria leaned in, set her fangs to his flesh, and bit.

Her fangs found his vein easily and his hot, sweet blood poured into her mouth. He tensed against her, as if in pain, and she remembered her veil. At the mere thought of it, she felt a little tick in her mind and it unfurled on its own, covering over the man she held in her arms.

The man relaxed into her, molding himself against her. The blood flowed easier, and suddenly Daria understood the biological reason for the veil. It was a little like a spider’s venom, incapacitating her victim.

His blood filled her, sating the hunger. Daria closed her eyes and immersed herself in the experience. When she’d been human and she’d tasted blood, it had always been salty and metallic. Disgusting. Certainly nothing to savor. This was nothing like that. It was nothing like Alejandro’s blood either, which had tasted silky and elegant. This blood was sweet, delicious. Like an after dinner sherry. Like laughter on a rainy day, or an unexpected commview from an old friend. Simply pleasurable.

Somehow, being Chosen had changed the flavor of human blood for her. Or maybe it was just that she knew it for what it was now. Humans might be fragile, but their capacity for life was endless. Perhaps that was the element in the blood that she focused on. Perhaps that ingredient tasted the strongest to her and drowned everything else out.

Whatever it was, it was ambrosia, and Daria drank her fill of it, letting the warm liquid pour down her throat and allowing it to replenish her.

The moment the hunger was satiated, she released the man. She did it so fast that he swayed and had to hold on to her to keep from falling backward. Daria had an instant to stare into his heavy-lidded eyes. He looked drugged and happy to be that way. He looked like every other veilhounder she’d ever picked up off the floor of a club or helped up from an alley in New Chicago.

Masking the horror she felt at having caused that reaction in him, she stood and backed away. Carlos’s gaze was on her. Daria glanced around, realizing she was the first one to have ceased feeding, and knowing she’d been the last one to begin.

Carlos walked over to her slowly. “Your technique is shaky and amateurish, but I suppose it can be forgiven considering how new to Chosen-ness you are. That was the first human you’ve ever tasted, wasn’t it?” he purred into her ear.

Not trusting herself to speak, she just nodded.

“Lovely, aren’t they?”

She was saved from having to respond by the breakup of several of the vamp-blood donor pairings. One by one, the vamps separated from their victims and stepped back.

Alejandro was the last to stop feeding. The woman staggered back and sank to the floor, looking well satisfied, like a woman who had just been fucked to several climaxes. Having been on the receiving end of Alejandro’s veil, Daria knew how strong it was. Of all of the victims, Alejandro’s looked the most affected.

Alejandro turned toward Daria with his fangs still extended. When their gazes collided, heat flared fast in his hooded eyes. In that moment, Daria didn’t need telepathy or any other means of communication to know exactly what Alejandro wanted to do to her. Consuming human blood had aroused him. She looked away.

The succubare and his donor simply never returned. Daria didn’t want to know what was going on there.

Carlos mouthed some closing remarks that Daria heard but didn’t care about since her mind was working over the implications of blood donors here at the Shining Way, the fact that feeding from a human had excited Alejandro, and the undeniable fact that humans were inherently irresistible to a vampire. Before, of course, she hadn’t known that. Or, at least, the knowledge had been theoretical.

The group of initiates broke up and started to filter into the crush of the crowd. The lights grew brighter and talking and laughter began to reach her ears. The solemn atmosphere transformed to a festive one and a Latin beat filled the air.

Daria blinked, watching as Carlos and Gordon ushered the blood donors to their feet and out of the room.

Alejandro grasped her arm and whispered in her ear, “They’re having a party here now, Valerie, but I suggest we go back to our room for a while.” We need to talk, he finished telepathically.

He pulled her against him and twined a hand to the nape of her neck, the other around her waist. His mouth came down on hers without warning. Her hands found his shoulders and hung on to prevent her knees from buckling under the unanticipated impact of his lips on hers.

He kissed her lightly at first, tasting her. Their breath mingled as he brushed his lips back and forth over her mouth. Alejandro nipped at her lower lip, then slipped his mouth back over hers. The sensation shot straight to her sex, making her feel hot, swollen, and achy, and had her gripping his shoulders even harder.

That turned out to be just foreplay.

Alejandro slanted his mouth across hers, parted her lips, and slipped his hot tongue in to tangle. Deep. Possessive. It made her think of ways Alejandro could invade her body that had nothing at all to do with her mouth and everything do with places lower down. All traces of the blood he’d consumed were gone. He just tasted like pure, unadulterated sin.

All Alejandro.

He nibbled, sucked, and consumed her mouth. If there was anyone around them, Daria didn’t know and she didn’t care. Her whole world was suddenly all about Alejandro’s mouth on hers.

Her sex felt hot and achy with the need to be filled by him. Her breasts were sensitive and tingled where they brushed against his chest. His hard cock pressed against her and all she wanted was to stroke it, lick it. She wanted it thrusting inside her, wanted his hard body over hers, driving into her.

When he pulled away, she lost her breath. He set his forehead to hers and groaned. “This is hell, you know that? I’m in fucking hell.”

He grabbed her hand and guided her through the crowd and out the door. She did her best not to stumble and fall behind him. The man was a menace. Pure and simple.

Neither of them said a word until they reached the room. By then, Daria was back to simmering with anger instead of from Alejandro’s kiss.

She closed the door behind them and fisted her hands. “Blood donors,” she said quietly. And she’d fed from one and reveled in it. “Do you think there could be blood slaves, too?” They couldn’t be far behind, not here, not when Christopher Sante came from a tradition of transporting them.

Alejandro walked to the windows and back. When he turned, Daria glimpsed a riot of emotion on his face before his expression settled into a neutral mask. “Yes. I would expect it of him. It’s an easy way for Sante to afford all this. It’s a business he knows. Why would he avoid it if it makes money?”

“Maybe the donors are just for show and the blood slaves are the private side business of Sante and his inner circle.” Daria chewed the edge of her thumb. “Maybe the donors are just a cover.”

Alejandro nodded. “It’s definitely possible. It’s probably not something he’d reveal to the world at large. Not even here, where he probably feels safe.”

“You think he’s collecting them and selling them off?”

“It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Hell, the GBC has suspected it for a while now.”

“We’ll need proof. We’ll have to find where he’s keeping them.” Besides snooping around for Ari Templeton, she’d be keeping her eyes open for anything linking Sante to blood slave trafficking.

Alejandro stared at her for a long moment, his expression turning grim.

“What’s wrong with you, Alejandro? You’re acting pissed off. What the hell are you thinking about?”

He shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Bullshit.”