Free Dark Embrace (Principatus) by Lexxie Couper Page B

you were…” He turned back to Ezryn, the last of his sentence fading on his lips.
    The master vampire stood at the window, face carved from granite, his normally black eyes burning iridescent red fire. Jacob frowned, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat. When Ezryn’s eyes changed color, bad things happened. Bad things to bad vampires. The only bad vampire Ezryn had seen lately, as far as Jacob knew, was Fat Harry. A squirming finger of hope pressed at Jacob’s chest. Did that mean Ezryn was finally going to do something about his brother? Was he finally going to deal with the ridiculous situation and take back the position rightfully his?
    “I had her.” The flat calm in Ezryn unexpected statement made Jacob blink. “I tasted her.”
    Jacob’s frown deepened. “Who did you taste? The woman from the club? Who was she?”
    Ezryn’s nostrils flared again, his molten red eyes glowing darker. Angrier. “The Principatus I am to kill.”
    The blood drained from Jacob’s face. “The Principatus?” He dragged his hand over his mouth, staring at his friend. “Dark Ones, Ezryn. Did you know that before or after you stuck your head between her thighs?”
    A somehow tormented tension flashed over Ezryn’s stony expression, and he turned to look out the window.
    Jacob raised his eyebrows. “Ah, I see.”
    “That’s good,” Ezryn growled, his stare never wavering from the lightening skyline beyond the glass. “Because I don’t.” He clenched his fists and folded his arms across his chest, his eyes a deep red. “I smelt her. I knew what she was. I knew what I was there to do. And then I saw her, I felt her, and all I wanted to do was sink my fangs into her flesh and make her mine.”
    Jacob studied his friend’s brooding profile, an uneasy itch awakening in his gut. “Make her yours?” Make her his. Not fuck her, or take her or even drain her. Sink his fangs into her flesh and make her his. What did that mean? What exactly did that mean?
    To a vampire, there were four reasons for fang-to-flesh penetration. To feed, to kill, to change and to bind. The first two happened frequently—although neither Jacob nor Ezryn, nor any of those loyal to Ezryn had bitten to kill for over five centuries. The third reason—to change a human into a vampire—occurred less often.
    The vampire race existed in a permanent state of tenacious control—those born vampires ruled over those changed. It was a relationship born on respect and loathing. Lifers , those born vampires, tolerated bleeders , vampires created by a lifer who didn’t rein in their blood lust during feeding. Occasionally, the odd bleeder rebelled against the natural order and suffered the consequences. Those consequences were not pretty. Far from it, in fact. A bleeder who forgot their place in the hierarchy soon found themselves pegged out naked and spread-eagle in a treeless field or shadowless rooftop, their flesh scored in ribbons of tiny lacerations, waiting for the sun to rise as their blood slowly oozed from their veins. A bleeder who fought to rise above their place and did so by challenging the power of a lifer soon discovered the true force of a born vampire. Unfortunately, it was the want of every bleeder to flex their new vampiric muscles, and many rarely survived beyond the first year of their new life. As a consequence, the changing bite occurred less frequently than in centuries past.
    The only time a bite to change from human to vampire was condoned was when the two parties involved—vampire and human—consented to the transformation. Love or lust created bleeders, and the emotion behind the transformation tainted that new vampire’s state of psyche from the second of their resurrection—a fact that led to more than one joyous joining…or bloody reprisal. Those changed for love lived long. Those born from blood lust lived until their violent birth caught up with them.
    The fourth reason—to bind—was permissible only between a master