“How I’ve missed you,” he said in a deep, intent voice.

His fingers went to the tie he’d just straightened and slowly worked the knot free. Her response was instantaneous. Her eyes flashed like rubies in front of a bonfire, and she did nothing to hide the reaction. She knew it made him sick.

“You missed me? Of course you missed me.” Her voice was like that of a snake, the S’s lingering through long exhales. “But by how much?”

Rehv kept the beach scene in the forefront of his mind, nailing the sucker to his frontal lobe, keeping her out of him. “I missed you to distraction.”

He put his cane aside, shed his jacket, and let loose the top button on his silk shirt…then the next…and the next, until he had to pull the tails out of his slacks to finish the job. As he shrugged his shoulders and let the silk fall to the floor, the Princess hissed for real and his cock swelled.

He hated her and he hated the sex, but he loved that he had the power over her that he did. Her weakness gave him a sexual thrill that was damn close to when you were actually attracted to someone. Which was how he managed to get it up even as his skin crawled like it was draped in a blanket of worms.

“Keep your clothes on,” she said in a sharp voice.

“No.” He always took them off when he wanted to, not when she said. His pride demanded it.

“Keep your clothes on, whore.”

“No.” He undid his belt and snapped it free from his hips, the supple leather cracking in the air. He dropped it as he had the shirt, without care.

“The clothes stay on…” Her words drifted because her strength was weakening. Which was the fucking point.

With a deliberate hand, he cupped himself, then unzipped his fly, freed the fastener, and felt his pants fall down to the rough floor in a rush. His erection stood straight out from his hips, and pretty much summed up their relationship. He was viciously angry at her, and he hated himself, and he despised the fact that Trez was outside witnessing this all.

And as a result his cock was rock-hard and glistening at the tip.

For symphaths, a trip into mental illness was better than any Agent Provocateur splurge, and that was why this whole thing worked. He could give that sick shit to her. He could give her something else, too. She craved the sexual combat they had. Symphath mating was a civil chess match with an exchange of body fluids at the end. She needed the carnal grunt and grind only his vampire side could give her.

“Touch yourself,” she breathed. “Touch yourself for me.”

He didn’t do as she asked. With a growl, he kicked off his loafers and stepped away from the pile of his clothes. As he walked forward, he was damn aware of the picture he made, all hard and heavy. He stopped in the middle of the cabin, a slice of moonlight streaming through the window and running over the planes of his body.

He hated to admit it, but he craved this bad shit with her, too. It was the only time in his life that he could be who he really was, that he didn’t have to lie to the people around him. The ugly truth of it was, part of him needed this sick, twisted relationship, and that, more than the threat to him and Xhex, was what kept him coming back month after month.

He wasn’t sure whether the Princess knew his weakness. He was always careful not to tip his hand, but you could never be too sure what a symphath had on you. Which, of course, made the maneuvering all the more interesting because the stakes were higher.

“I thought we would start off tonight with a little show,” he said, turning around. With his back to her, he started to pleasure himself, taking his thick cock into his big hand and stroking it.

“Boring,” she said breathlessly.

“Liar.” He squeezed the head of his arousal so hard a gasp shot out of him.

The Princess moaned at the sound he made, his pain drawing her even further into the game. As he looked down at what he was doing, he felt a brief, troubling displacement, like it was someone else’s cock and someone else’s arm moving up and down. But, then, the distance from the act was necessary, the only way his decent vampire nature could handle this thing they did. The good part of him wasn’t here. He checked it at the door when he stepped inside.

This was the land of the Sin-eater.

“What are you doing,” she groaned.

“Stroking myself. Hard. The moonlight looks good on my cock. I’m wet.”

She sucked in sharply. “Turn around. Now.”

“No.”

Even though she made no sound, he knew she came forward at that moment, and the triumph he felt wiped out the disassociation. He lived for breaking her. It was fucking heroin in his veins, this power coursing through him. Yeah, afterward he would feel dirty as fuck, and, sure, he lived with nightmares because of all this, but right now he was seriously getting off.

The Princess came around in the shadows, and he knew when she saw what he was up to, because she moaned out loud, not even her symphath reserve strong enough to hold in her response.

“If you’re going to look at me”-he squeezed the head of his cock again until it went purple and he had to arch his back from the pain-“I want to see you.”

She stepped into the moonlight, and he lost his rhythm for a moment.

The Princess was dressed in a brilliant red gown, the rubies at her throat glowing against her paper white skin. Her blue-black hair was coiled on her head, her eyes and lips the same color as the bloodred stones around her neck. From her earlobes, two albino scorpions hung from their stinger tails, watching him.

She was hideously beautiful. An upright reptile with hypnotic eyes.

Her arms were crossed in front of her waist and tucked into the floor-length sleeves of her dress, but she dropped them now, and he didn’t look at her hands. Couldn’t. They disgusted him too much, and if he caught sight of them he would lose his erection.

To keep himself aroused, he slipped his palm under his balls and stretched them up so they framed his cock. As he let both parts of his sex fall back into place, they bobbed with potency.

There was so much she wanted to see of him that her eyes didn’t know where to go. As they traced over his chest, they lingered on the pair of red stars that marked his pecs. Vampires thought they were just decoration, but to symphaths, they were evidence of both his royal blood and the two murders he’d committed: Patricide got you stars, as opposed to matricide, which got you circles. Red ink meant he was a member of the royal family.

The Princess did away with her gown, and beneath its lush folds her body was covered in a red satin netting that dug into her skin. In keeping with the largely sexless appearance of her kind, her breasts were small and her hips smaller. The only way you could be sure she was female was the tiny slit between her legs. The males were likewise androgynous, with their long hair that they wore up as the females did and their identical gowns. Rehv had never seen one of the males naked, thank fuck, but he assumed their cocks had the same little anomaly his own did.

Oh, the joy.

His anomaly was, of course, another reason he liked fucking the Princess. He knew it hurt for her at the end.

“I’m going to touch you now,” she said, coming up to him. “Whore.”

Rehv steeled himself as her hand closed around his arousal, but he gave her only a moment of contact. Stepping back sharply, he popped his cock out of her grip.

“Are you going to end our relationship?” he drawled, hating the words he spoke. “Is that why you blew me off the other night? This shit too boring for you?”

She came forward, as he knew she would. “Come now, you’re a toy of mine. I’d miss you terribly.”

“Ah.”

This time when she grabbed him, she dug her nails into his shaft. He held his gasp in by tightening his shoulders until his collarbones nearly snapped.