Free The Council (Darkness #5) by K.F. Breene Page B

you equally.” Charles pushed me toward the line. “Also, you take too long and I’m usually hungry. Let’s get crackin’. I could eat this whole place.”
    Remembering my own manners, I stuck out my hand to the man. “Sasha.”
    He shook it, letting me enter the line first. “Harry. So, yes, let’s get you caught up. It’s always nice to meet someone of my own speed. I will absolutely have to introduce you to my mistress. She’ll be thrilled a human has been able to breach the negative stereotype.”
    “Right, so let’s just get something out of the way. You’re totally fine being a pet? That doesn’t bother you at all?”
    He laughed, apparently tickled by this question. “The title is derogatory, yes. But that’s the title these people know. Most don’t mean it that way. I am basically a boyfriend with an open relationship. I am a trophy wife to a billionaire. I am a lover to a beautiful woman. The term used to describe all these things could be derogatory. But we have an understanding, and we share mutual respect.”
    “But… you would let her kind go first?”
    He picked up a shiny, white plate. “In this place, absolutely. Not to defer would cause offense, and I would receive challenges. At home… it depends. Generally I let ladies go first, and some of the more alpha males. After that, it’s just good manners—either I gesture someone on, or they do likewise to me.”
    “Next question: were you lured with pheromones?”
    “The mistress—Tessa—doesn’t condone that practice. Humans wandering around without memories, their personalities changing—it just calls too much attention.”
    “But nothing about it being unethical.”
    Harry shrugged. “That’s a nonissue since they don’t use the pheromones sexually, or in any way not specifically to protect the homestead. They try not to interact with humans when at all possible.”
    I picked up my own white plate, and then handed it to Charles so he wouldn’t reach over me with his big arm and knock me to the side. It wouldn’t be the first time. “So how’d you get hooked up with her?”
    Harry smiled. “I approached her.” Seeing my shocked look, he continued as he scooped a steak onto his plate. “You’re wondering how I could see them. Well, I had researched their kind pretty fully by that point. Follow the vampire myth thoroughly enough, and deep enough, and you find trails. Spend three years hunting trails, and eventually you find what you’re looking for. I’d approached her a few times, and woke up with no memory of it after. But when I went back to my research, the block they put in my head winked out. Finally she let me talk to her.”
    “So you’re chasing the myth and fell in love?”
    He led me to a table after we had full plates. “I haven’t fallen in love. This is a mutual respect situation where we both benefit. I get my life prolonged, I get to learn a little magic—though I’m not picking it up that well—and she gets a blood source at her beck and call. I only take from her once in a selected number of months, so we don’t have a blood link. My blood has lots of power, so she says, but I just can’t access it. Since she doesn’t need me to, it’s a partnership until one of us grows tired of it and moves on.”
    “What do you mean, it prolongs your life?”
    His eyes widened in shock. “Did you not know? Wow, what a rare find. You are truly new to this whole scene, hmm?”
    “Very, yes. As in, half a year or something.”
    “Oh my, well, yes. Heavens.” He chuckled as he cut into an egg. “Well, yes, accessing magic and ingesting their blood prolongs life. It’s probably why this group of people last so long. Share blood with someone of high power ranking and it’s that much longer still.”
    “Did you know that?” Charles asked Jessie. Jessie ignored him.
    “Do you share blood with any of these males?” Harry continued.
    “My, um, yes. I do. I’m not his pet—we have a mutual, um,