Why had she done this to herself? Alexis remembered Byron telling her the advice the Grand Duchess had given her. Love doesn’t give you a choice. Maybe that was the penalty, the cost of immortality.

Humans always hungrily tried to find ways to live forever, but would they if they knew the full cost? The realization then hit her—whether she was in a relationship with Katie or not, she would still have to watch her grow old and die, unless her love faded, which she knew it wouldn’t.

Katie was a loving, warm woman. She needed love, and Alexis was sure she would eventually find someone who would give her everything Alexis couldn’t, and that would be horrendous.

She fell forward and covered her face in her hands. Love was meant to be joyful, and yet she was in torment.

Through her messy thoughts and painful feelings, Alexis became aware of the scent of fresh blood, then the noise of something in the trees on the other side of the park. As she got closer, she heard a noise—something breathing and feeding.

Alexis ran at super speed into the trees. She arrived at the park wall just as something had left the scene and dropped on the other side of the wall. When she climbed the wall to follow, there was no one there.

Alexis dropped back down to where the blood scent was coming from and found a collection of dead birds and a few squirrels. All had been killed viciously, their flesh torn and ripped apart, as if in a frenzy.

It could have been another animal, but the creature she’d heard, which had jumped over the wall and slammed down on the pavement, sounded like a human, and that gave her an uneasy feeling.

Alexis made her way out of the trees and took out her mobile. She called her lieutenant. “Peter? Get a team to patrol a two-mile perimeter from the house. I found something in the park, and I have a bad feeling we have another vampire in the area.”

“Yes, Duca.”

When Alexis hung up the phone she went into her photos and gazed at the picture of Katie. There would be pain if she was with her, and if she wasn’t. Which was worse, loving her every day and losing her to age, slowly, or to danger out there in the world, or watching someone else love her?

Chapter Eighteen

The next day Byron and Amelia were due to meet Daisy. Byron waited in the drawing room, where Amelia said she would bring Daisy, and wondered what on earth she needed to talk about. Whatever it was, Byron had a bad feeling.

Byron looked at her watch—it was two o’clock in the afternoon. “Time for a quick drink.”