Page 90 of Dhampira

Vander’s brows pulled together. “They believe they helped enough by creating the Feyline and giving Ghedda to the humans.”

And Ruvien had given Vander claws. But that wasn’t the most compelling information the elf had revealed.

I looked at Lorcan. “Ruvien said Vander belongs to you.”

Something flitted through his eyes—another there-and-gone emotion he hid too quickly for me to catch. “This is a conversation for the bench,” he said, gesturing across the grass. When I hesitated, he sighed. “Sit, Corinthe, and you’ll have your answers.”

Finally. Vander and I sat and then waited while Lorcan fetched a second bench from the path and effortlessly carried it to the grass. When he was settled facing Vander and me, a different kind of tension filled the air. The men looked at each other.

“Should I…?” Vander asked.

“Do you…?” Lorcan said at the same time.

Vander shifted on the bench. Lorcan gripped the edge of his like he worried it might launch him across the Everless.

My heart did a curious flip. They were both warriors serving in a dark, cruel kingdom. I’d seen them kill. But right now, they were nervous. My mother had treated sex like any other bodily function. Are you embarrassed about blinking? she’d demand, looking up from snipping herbs. Then she’d rail about people suffering treatable sexual health conditions in silence because they were too ashamed to ask for help.

This wasn’t all that different. My mother would have approached it in her pragmatic, direct fashion.

Channeling her, I looked between the men. “How long have the two of you been together? Romantically.”

Lorcan straightened, his gaze sliding over Vander. “I don’t know if I’d call it”—his throat bobbed—“that.”

“But you’ve shared a bed, right?” I looked at Vander. “You have sex.”

A strangled sound made me swing back to Lorcan. His knuckles were white. If he gripped the bench any tighter, he risked cracking the stone.

“Yes,” Vander said. When I turned to him, he appeared at ease, his big body relaxed. He wasn’t nervous for himself, I realized. He was solicitous for Lorcan. There was significance in that, even if I couldn’t quite put my finger on it just yet.

“Lorcan and I share our bodies,” Vander said. “Although we don’t often share a bed. It’s too dangerous.”

“Because of Rasimir?”

He dipped his head. “We can’t risk him discovering that I siphon dead blood from Lorcan.” A smile touched Vander’s lips. “That’s how it started. Siphoning. Then it grew into something…more.”

The romance Lorcan didn’t want to acknowledge. “How long?” I asked.

“A little over a hundred years,” Vander said.

Surprise jolted me. A century? They’d been together four times longer than I’d been alive. And yet, Vander had desired me. I’d held the proof in my hand, so to speak. What did it mean?

If Vander liked Lorcan, how could he like me?

“Vander likes women, too,” Lorcan said.

I startled. “My face gave me away again?”

“Yes. And before you ask, I know Vander drained you last night.”

My mother’s directness deserted me. “So you, um, you know that I…That he…”

“Yes.”

Vander cleared his throat. “I overstepped, Corinthe. I worried about the werewolf’s blood affecting you. I should have warned you that siphoning would lead to arousal. It won’t happen again.”

Oh gods, how much had he told Lorcan? Enough, apparently. I’d wanted information. Now that I had it, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

What would Mama have done?