I shrug. Finding John’s body in the garden ripped my heart out, but it’s not something I talk about. “Go on,” I push instead.

“Go on what?”

“You want to ask me something.”

He has the same look the child therapist wore when she wanted me to “share.” Concern mixed with heavy inquisition. “Why are you afraid of small spaces, Michael?” she used to ask. I never had an answer. Still don’t.

I test the edge of an ax with my thumb and earn a line of crimson for my curiosity. I suck the blood away, and heat flashes across Flanagan’s gaze.

He takes a slow breath. “I’m wondering what it is you want.”

“What do you mean, want?”

“With your life. What do you hope for?”

I shoot him a withering glare. “Let me think. To live without chains or that fucking collar. That would be a start.” To find out who my parents were and why they died. That would be a prize, right there.

He sighs. “These circumstances are temporary.”

“Are they? Because my bloodsucker DNA isn’t temporary, is it? And fuck only knows what else I am. When will you decide I’m ‘safe’?” I use air quotes, even though it always pisses me off when people do that. “When I’m old and gray and useless, no doubt?”

His thick brow dips, and he blinks at me. “Michael, there is no old and gray for you. I assumed you understood that. Even if you haven’t inherited immortality, you will live a very long time. Hundreds of years.”

I fumble the ax I was lifting, and it clatters to the floor. I stare at him. Could he be right? Am I going to live as long as he has? As long as Alexei? The possibility hadn’t occurred to me. “But I’ve still got human in me.”

“Even so. You will live long after your peers are dead and gone.” He bends to retrieve the ax and replaces it on its hook. I watch every fold and stretch of his giant body—a body still supple and strong after three hundred years. My brain struggles to even process that I could live as long and stay as fit.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he says.

“What question?”

“What is it you want?”

“A life. What else would I want?” I grab a short, sturdy sword with a pummel hilt and stalk to the center of the room. “I thought we came here to fight.”

Flanagan raises a blond brow at me, then strips off his hard vest. The sudden sight of his sculpted chest makes my cock twitch. I clear my throat and study the ceiling for cracks.

Flanagan chooses a small dagger and joins me. “Do you want to marry? Have children? What about a career?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Marriage and career are probably off the table now, though.”