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conscious have such an annoying, high-pitched voice? she pondered. Not to mention such a pretentious accent?
     
    The sound of cold laughter ran down her spine like shards of ice. Looking upward she caught the dark-eyed gaze of Scarlet, the vampire who crouched like a caged cat in the corner of her cell.
     
    “ You honestly think that after Hathen has had this,” she gestured down the length of her slender, busty form, “he’s going to want you?”
     
    Jess chuckled, folding her arms on her desk.
     
    “ Now come on Scarlet, is that really the smartest thing for a woman in your position to be saying?” She tilted her head. “You seem to be forgetting the whole ‘What you say can and will be held against you’ thing.”
     
    “ It’s true!” Scarlet snapped, baring her fangs as her eyes flashed. “You won’t be able to keep a hold on him, or me either.”
     
    These words brought Jess out of her chair, and she flew to the side of Scarlet’s cell with her own teeth bared.
     
    “ You’re the leader of a bloodsucking den, aren’t you?” She seethed, fists bared. “And someone is going to be coming for you.”
     
    Fixing the police officer with an infuriating smile, Scarlet said nothing. She retreated to the corner of her cell, continuing to stare at Jess with evil eyes that seemed to lack expression.
     
    “ I know you’re hot and everything,” Jess shook her head, speaking in a low volume more to herself than to Scarlet. “Still, I just don’t get what he saw in you.”
     
    “ It’s a mystery to me too babe.”
     
    Jess gasped as she was swept most literally off her feet, gathered up in two strong arms and kissed senseless.
     
    Hathen held her closer than close as his lips engaged hers in a wild, frantic kiss. A kiss that stole her breath and made her pulse race.
     
    Even so, she pulled away long enough to shoot a triumphant smile in the direction of a scowling Scarlet.
     
    “ I dunno,” she shrugged. “I’d say I have a passing chance with him. Doncha think?”
     
    Soon the couple sat at Jess’s desk, feasting on a sumptuous chocolate cake Hathen had brought from Nightingale Park.
     
    “ You raced off before we could have dessert.” Hathen mentioned while slipping a moist chocolaty bite between Jess’s smiling lips. “And it was one I made myself.”
     
    “ Really? I’m impressed!” Jess smacked her lips, nodding approvingly. “I had no idea that vampires cooked.”
     
    Hathen chuckled, wiping some fallen crumbs from her desktop.
     
    “ We do all sorts of things other people do, Darling.” He winked. “We, after all, were once humans ourselves. We had homes, jobs, and families.”
     
    “ Do you have a past?” Jess questioned with a curious tone. “I mean you personally, Hathen. Who are you?”
     
    Hathen thought a moment, then shook his head.
     
    “ I can’t say that I have a past that I care to remember, or for that matter, to share.” He regarded her with a sad smile.
     
    “ Basically, Jess, my life as a child passed in a haze of yells and screams, trouble and strife. It soon became a revolving door of foster homes and strange faces who claimed to care.” He shrugged.
     
    “ Some of them did, I guess, but I was never able to find a place that I called home.” His gaze drew distant, almost dreamy, and his voice softened with his next words. “By the time I was 18 I was back on the streets, attending 'hard knocks university' and living in a youth hostel. It was there I met Alida, the very special lady who gave me the bite of life.”
     
    Jess was shocked.
     
    “ You actually believe that the person who did this to you gave you life?” Her forehead wrinkled in keen confusion.
     
    “ Of course!” A proud Hathen straightened in his seat, his full lips set in a firm line. “She introduced me to a family who, to this day, loves and supports me unconditionally. She introduced me to a life of unrivaled pleasure, while also showing me that I could make a