Long, dark hair with a lustrous sheen and attractive wave, the mass of it curling over her shoulders and down her chest. Big eyes that were a startling blue with a midnight edge to the iris. More than ample breasts from which he would very much enjoy feeding. The same with her thighs and ass. A musky scent that would not normally be his preference, but mingled with her residual fear, as well as her courage, he couldn’t help but find it alluring.

With the restrictions on vampire feeding finally lifted, if this was any other time, and indeed if he were not vampire and she were not witch, he’d take her, making her enjoy it. He’d start with her inner thigh, close to her sex, so he could feed at the same time he watched his fingers thrust deep and listened as excitement overcame her fear.

“Uh, I don’t have to read minds to see you’re looking at me like I’m your next meal,” she pointed out, taking his attention from where it had fixated on the pulse in her neck and bringing it back to her eyes.

“I’m hungry,” he warned. “And you’re immensely beautiful,” he went on, seeing her blink again at his words. “And you smell magnificent, like blood and earth and wind, fear and bravery. I want that taste on my tongue,” he told her with blunt honesty and watched as her eyes grew round. “So perhaps we can hurry this along so my control doesn’t snap along with my patience.”

“You’re hungry?” she asked, the fear edging back, but he couldn’t help but notice there was a hint of curiosity.

“This mission is important and dangerous, so I left my concubine behind.” He ignored her wrinkling her nose, not only because he didn’t like the indication she found his use of a concubine distasteful, but also because it was annoyingly adorable. “This means I haven’t fed in three days.”

It also meant he hadn’t fucked in three days. Since the restrictions were lifted, he, like all other vampires, took advantage. And after five hundred years of having the sweetest blood to be tasted in his mouth, blood that came from attractive women who very much enjoyed his feeding to its fullest (when he could not), he took everything a concubine could offer, not only her blood.

But he wasn’t doing this now.

Which was yet another reason he was in a foul mood.

At his words, her eyes got huge and she pushed against the wall, whispering, “Oh my God.”

Yuri sighed and forced them back on track. “A witch. In this town. Twenty years ago. With a blessed athame that can scar an immortal. A name and address would be useful.”