Page 24 of Wolfgang

Sybil threw up her hands. “Daphne.Really.”

“What?” Daphne giggled. “He’s curious. And we can always make him forget later.”

They could, couldn’t they? He’d been right.

These women had money. Proximity to immortality. The ability to manipulate others with just a few words. Wolfe felt a pinch of true excitement replace the envy in his gut, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time, not since his parents had lost their fortune. Since he’d been left out in the cold despite a lifetime of careful, contained behavior.

He was bored of it. Bored of keeping himself under such tight control without reward. And with nothing left to him? Not even what was supposed to have been his due? It was only a matter of time before he was going to snap. And then he’d be risking prison or a hanging. Consequences. It was all about consequences.

It was time to change the stakes.

“How did you come to be this way?”

Daphne looked to Sybil, a flirtatious pleading in her gaze. It took only a moment before Sybil sighed and waved a hand, giving her tacit permission. Daphne rose in her seat to peck her on the cheek, then turned to Wolfe with a cheeky smile. “We were turned into what we are by another like us.”

There it was. Wolfe stepped closer. “And you can do the same?”

Sybil let out a sigh, her fingertips toying with the ends of her heavy waves of hair. “I don’t like the direction of this conversation.”

A pity she felt that way, but no concern of his. “Turn me,” he ordered, unable to bring himself to make it a request.

Daphne only smiled, but Sybil laughed at him, low and mocking. “You have no idea what you’re asking. Have you already forgotten what you’ve seen?” She gestured to the passing crowds. “You’d need to regularly consume human blood to survive.”

Wolfe nodded. “Fine.”

“And you wouldn’t age.”

“Excellent.”

“Meaning,” Sybil stressed, as if he were one of the dim-witted masses and hadn’t followed that thread to its logical conclusion, “you’d have to leave your family behind, abandon your position in this world.”

“Not a problem.”

Sybil leaned forward in her seat, seemingly intrigued despite herself. “You might kill, when you’re starting out. You’ll be out of control. You’ll most likely take human lives.”

Should he pretend remorse over that fact? But Daphne, for her part, was looking him over with a knowing gleam in her eyes. He wasn’t so sure she’d be fooled. For once, Wolfe chose the plain truth over manipulation. “I’m not particularly bothered by that.”

“What a little monster,” Daphne crooned approvingly. It seemed he’d chosen correctly. “Maybeweshouldturn him.” At Sybil’s look, she shrugged prettily. “I’ve always wanted a child.”

Sybil looked Wolfe over with distaste. “He’s a fully grown man. And a creepy one, as you said.”

“Still.”

Sybil frowned at her paramour. “He won’t be like we were when we turned. He doesn’t have a mate at his side.”

“A mate?” Wolfe asked, not willing to let them deny him on a technicality. Would they really refuse to turn him because he didn’t have a wife? He could get a wife.

Daphne smiled winningly at him. “A beloved, just for you.”

Sybil let out an exasperated noise, apparently displeased with that explanation. “Our kind. We’re given a…matched spirit, you could say. Fate designates us a person, to spend our extended lives with. If we can find them. If not, this path won’t end well for you. You’ll go feral. You’ll be put down like a rabid dog.”

Wolfe would like to see them try. Still, best to be cautious.“How long do I have to find them?”

“Hard to say. Decades? Centuries? It varies.”

The imprecision was frustrating, but Wolfe could manage. He had faith in himself above all else, including fate. “And how will I know?

“You’ll just…know. They’ll be yours, and you’ll know it.” She exchanged a disgustingly loving look with Daphne, who preened under the attention.

---