Damon checked the stallion to a walk and breathed in the crisp morning air. The sun rose over the horizon and filled the green fields with brilliant light. He kept to the shoulder of the road as they neared the village. Very few of the inhabitants had ever seen him; a leer marred his perfect lips as he recalled nights of blood and lust with the ones who had strayed into his forest.

A glen opened in the trees lining the road and Damon guided the stallion into the cover it provided, then shifted the limp body in his arms and swung from the saddle. The grass underfoot grew thick and he laid Caleb in the sunshine and stroked his light hair, soft as silk. The bruising on his creamy neck had already faded and Damon pressed a kiss to the spot, sliding his tongue over the vein beneath the skin.

He laughed with unaccustomed amusement. He’d allowed very few of the men he’d fed on to live. He touched Caleb’s tempting lips with a thumb. So pretty. His dick stirred and he ran a hand over Caleb’s leanly muscled chest, so like his brother’s ...

He gave Caleb a parting kiss. “Wake,” he murmured, and watched the flutter of his lashes. He rose and stretched, wanting nothing more than to be home with Lacey, twined in an urgent embrace. His erection strained against his trousers at the memory of timid fingers and breathless gasps, and the first awakening of passion in Lacey’s untouched body.

“Is this love?” he asked, and released a sigh, puzzled by the jumble of emotions in his breast, tender and protective, yet aflame with desire. He thought of a boy in his youth and the months of abandoned pleasure they’d shared, until his darling had been murdered by townsmen for loving him, butchered and left to bleed out in the courtyard of Damon’s manor house.

Damon reined in the fury boiling in his mind. That had been a lifetime ago, in a country far from this one. He’d learned to be careful, and the safety found in solitude, since then.

A gasp from Caleb as he came awake recalled him and Damon mounted and trotted from the glen before Caleb became aware of him.

Once on the road he kicked his horse to a gallop, his pulse singing in his veins at the thought of tasting Lacey once again. He raised his head and shook out the dark strands of his hair, feeling the sting of a blush in his cheeks at the unaccustomed joy in his breast. But he also cautioned his heart against the hope that Lacey returned his feelings. He’d sensed Lacey’s fear and shame at how easily he’d succumbed to Damon’s rampant desire. Damon urged the stallion on, eager to teach Lacey the pleasures of the body two men could share, and in doing so, perhaps they would learn love together.