She grits her teeth and suppresses a shudder of erotic longing as the first sample tube begins to fill with blue-tinged venous blood.

“Does it make you wet?” Oscar asks abruptly.

Mhari stares at him over their sleeping donor’s head, then glances in the direction of his crotch. It’s a moment she’s been anticipating for weeks, the crossing of a delicious Rubicon. “Does it give you a hard-on?” she replies. She meets his gaze directly, then smiles and pulls back her lips so that he can see what they conceal. The pulse in his throat is fast. What took you so long? she wonders. “It’s better than sex.” She shivers.

“I wouldn’t know,” Oscar says slowly. “I haven’t compared it directly to sex with one of our kind. Have you noticed that humans are less interesting these days?”

“Wait.” Mhari forces herself to focus on the syringe. “Actually, yes I have. Take this.” She swaps out the sample tube and passes him the full one. “Sorry. Where were we?” Do you mean to follow through or are you going to chicken out?

“We were discussing . . .”

He’s married. Probably hasn’t propositioned anyone in years. Scared of harassment lawsuits and the bill for the divorce settlement. Do I always have to do the heavy lifting? “My place or yours?”

“I was thinking in terms of a hotel? But first”—he raises the tube—“a toast. To health, life, and wealth!”

• • •

AFTER THEY RELIEVE SARA THE CLEANER OF APPROXIMATELY 100ml of blood—a third of a unit, so little that she’ll barely notice it—Mhari and Oscar leave her sleeping soundly in Oscar’s chair and head for the car park. Discreet decorum is observed until they’re behind the tinted windows of Oscar’s Panamera. Then they lean shoulder-to-shoulder and exchange a kiss tainted with a new and breathtaking scent that makes them both shudder. From which moment it runs forward as if on rails.

Oscar’s self-restraint is superhuman. He imposes it on Mhari, even though she’s shaking slightly with anticipation. He stays outwardly calm and collected as he drives into Mayfair, drops the keys in a valet’s hand, walks up to the front desk at Claridge’s, and says: “I’d like the best suite you’ve got for the night.” Mhari tumbles along in his wake, trying to hold herself together. I’m melting! she thinks. Something in the blood has gotten to her. Then the door on one of the Linley Suites closes behind them and he turns to face her, and the frenzied animals come out.