Free The Scientific Method: A Vampire Queen Novel (Vampire Queen Series Book 10) by Joey W. Hill Page A

and then he offered the rest to Maggie, one of Lyssa's Irish wolfhounds. The elderly dog didn't run with the pack so much anymore, instead reaping the benefits of tagging after a vampire carrying around too much food.
    He'd even dropped one of the Cheetos into the top of her mice's cage, to her amusement. He had opposed her having the mice, but hadn't forbidden them as long as they didn't cause hygiene issues in the research areas. Since then, she thought he'd actually gotten fond of them. One day she'd seen him looking up. He'd discovered them assembled just over his head, watching what he was doing as seriously as interns. He'd smiled, reached up with a pointer to tap the plastic tube, then went back to what he was doing.
    She curved her fingers over his shoulder, slid over the biceps again. Where his other hand was wrapped around the pillow, she outlined his fingers, then rested the tops of hers on his. He kept his nails short and impeccably clean.
    Curling her hand into a loose ball, she ran her knuckles down his side, over his rib cage, the layers of firm flesh. He was beautiful, and it made her heart hurt to look at him. She was so tired.
    I love you, Master. I'm sorry. This would be so much easier if I didn't feel that way, if I could figure out how to love you without wanting...more. If I could figure out the chemical composition of want and desire and remove it, I would. I just don't know if I can do this for three hundred years. I always thought I could be a selfless, unconditional love kind of person, but I'm falling short in that area .
    With a sigh, she curled up next to him, pillowing her cheek in the small of his back, her head cradled in that dip between chest and backside. She furrowed her hand up between the pillow and the clasp he had on it. When he instinctively changed his grip to her hand, she closed her eyes. Sweet heaven. Just to lie here and hear his heartbeat, feel his heat against her, hold his hand and imagine he was consciously holding it back.
    She wished she'd never wake. That she could fall asleep like this, and let it be the last feeling she carried with her into eternity.
    As she drifted off, her breathing evening out, Brian slid his hand more securely around hers, held on. You don't go to eternity without me, Debra . But she was already gone, and he couldn't hold out another second. It had taken all the energy he had to be still under her touch, listen to the poignant meandering of her mind.
    He followed her into sleep.
    §
    And came out of it with a sharp jerk and snarl. Thrashing, he flung himself out of bed, and only vampire reflexes landed him on his feet.
    "My lord. Brian."
    He shook off the haze of sleep and nightmare, spinning on the ball of his foot to see her sitting up in the center of the bed, her hair disheveled, eyes wide in her elfin face. She had such fragile features. Another thing that made people underestimate her strength. He saw she looked better rested, and a glance at the clock said it was a couple hours past sundown. They'd both overslept.
    "The Council update." She realized it at exactly the same time he thought it in his mind, and she was out of the bed in a flash. She'd folded her short lab coat over the chair by the neat pile of her clothes and grabbed it now, shrugging it on against the early evening chill even as she hurried to pull clothes out of his closet for him. Because she used her third mark speed, she had them delivered to his side a second before she flashed into the bathroom, heating the sink water so he could do a quick face wash and hair brushing.
    Watching her fly around in just the lab coat and nothing else reminded him of his earlier fantasy. His cock, already in full fledge "morning" mode, which was the same for vampire or human males, only at different waking times, got even harder. When she hurried by him this time, he proved he was faster, catching her around the waist and putting her up against the wall.
    "My lord," she gasped, her slim fingers