Page 2 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

"'I'll travel the world', Konner said. 'See ancient battle grounds and taste exotic foods so delicious I'll eat a banquet all to myself. And the maidens will be comely and plump. Breasts so large they fill a man's hands.'" He kneads the air as if he could already feel it.

Kánnérd smiled to himself, seeing his brother's idea of perfection as if it was his own.

"And what of you, bratku?" Konner asked. "What will you do when we escape?"

Not if. But when? Ever hopeful, brother.

"Tupping a few bonny maiden's is ne're a bad idea." They shared a laugh, their voices wheezing with strain from their injuries.

What did he want to do if they ever escaped their hell? In his mind he saw food and lots of it.

"I'll eat for days. Weeks. All the food in the world. Cream sauces, tarts, and fruits. Fried breads and bloody meat doused in salt. I'll glutton myself 'till I'm sick with it." A heavy breath heaved from his constricted lungs as his vision filled with his favorite fantasy of all. The one so out of reach, he'd hardened his heart to ever thinking it really existed. "I'll find my Fated One, too."

Konner lifted his head from the cold stone floor to gaze at him. "You think those stories are true? That we have one fated mate made just for us?" Like mamu and dad?

Kánnérd shrugged. He knew little about the world. Being around these vampires had revealed just how undereducated he and his brother were. According to Elustrian, the pack they'd come from had been out of touch with the rest of werewolf traditions because of their isolation from outside packs. "Unorthodox," he'd called it.

Were his father and mother fated mates, he'd wondered? Is that why his father had never been happy—because his mate had died? All these years later and he could still see his father's deadened gaze staring listlessly into those flames.

"Even if it's no' true, I'll find my one female. I'll build her a house. It'll ne're be cold." Even in sleep in his childhood home, he'd shivered endlessly during the long winters. Always waking to try to find warmth that never came. "Even in the harshest winters we'll sweat in bed. And I'll keep a cellar of extra venison. We'll never go hungry. And my babes will crawl in front of the fire. We'll laugh. We'll be . . . Happy."

Konner sighed dreamily, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth where he'd been beaten repeatedly. "A fated mate . . . I want one too. What would yours be like?"

A blush warms his neck and Kánnérd's glad his brother doesn't tease him for it. He'd oft thought about her, imagined what she would look like, smell like as if he could create her through thoughts alone. Even if she wasn't real, all he had in this hell were his thoughts. It's the only thing they couldn't touch.

No harm could come from imagining his fated mate. The one soul his own longed for. So he thought about her every day. He envisioned what they'd do together. What gifts he'd bring her. How she'd smile at him, and they'd laugh together. How she'd cradle their babes and he'd rock them to sleep. Belly's full, blankets heavy and warm, enough firewood for years. It would be heaven on earth.

Kánnérd brought up the mental picture of her in his mind. An exhausted smile curled one corner of his mouth upward. "She's bonny and wee. Much smaller than me. She fits snug against me like a doll. It's easy to protect her. But she loves to eat. Just like me. Big appetite." He grinned at that, warmth filling his body. "Her heart is kind. She's friendly to everyone and a great mother to our babes. We have many."

"How many do you want?" Konner asked then.

"Six at least," he answered swiftly.

His brother gawked, but shrugged as if to say, 'why not?'

"I've never thought about children," Konner admitted.

Kánnérd wasn't surprised by that. His brother had always been the explorer, the adventurer, and Kánnérd, the determined hunter. Always busy tilling the fields, while his brother eloped through the woods chasing frogs or swinging from branches. Kánnérd would have liked to spend time playing too, but crops needed tending, animals needed hunting and skinning and meat frozen and plied away for later.

"And she's smart, too. We'll talk for hours. It'll never be boring. We'll never tire of teaching each other. We'll never be sad."

Konnor sighed. "Ach, bratku, that's beautiful. You'll have your dream one day."

The dungeon door squealed open and slammed closed as a guard came to gather them. It was time for Elustrian's late-night snack. He always chose one of them.

Kánnérd hated himself, because sometimes he wanted them to choose Konner instead of him. Just for a brief reprieve. The guilt he'd feel while his brother was away from him was worse than if he'd been chosen. And yet still, he sometimes yearned not to be selected.

"Uncuff him. But leave the other."

Kánnérd came out of his memories like a thick fog gently rising to the sky. His eyes blinked slowly, coming back into focus and revealing the same inner courtyard of Elustrian's great hall. The same marble white floors. The slippery red blood on the floor. The laughter and sounds of slapping flesh. His skin curls as if to protect itself.

But this was different.

Someone released his harsh metal binding.

"Uncuff him. But leave the other," someone had said, but it wasn't a figment of his imagination.

Guards with silver swords that would easily cut through and kill werewolves or vampires alike, grab him and shove him to his feet. His knees knock like two twigs in a wind storm. He had no strength left. He'd been sucked dry of most of his blood.

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