Page 1 of Can't Bite This Feeling
Prologue
33 A.D., Roman Empire. Somewhere near what is now Southern Europe.
Rapha
The first time I see her, she’s barefoot in her father’s garden, crushing lavender beneath her toes like she’s never been told not to ruin something beautiful.
I’m perched in the olive tree above her, hidden in the dark. Not stalking. Not exactly. Just… watching. The way a starving man might watch a feast he has no right to touch.
She hums as she walks, head tipped to the moonlight, lips curved in a smile meant for the stars. A girl with secrets. A girl with fire.
Drusilla.
General Cassian’s daughter.
Off-limits in every possible way.
She’s supposed to be meek. Quiet. Invisible. Raised to be seen only when summoned, heard only when praised. But there sheis, half-wild and wholly radiant, talking to the moon as though it’s an old friend and laughing under her breath like she’s in on a joke the world hasn’t caught up to.
And me? I’m undone.
Centuries of control, of wrapping myself in shadows and silence, fray the moment she steps barefoot onto the path.
The first time we speak, it’s because she lures me out like a siren with no song but all the same power. Her voice is low and certain as she steps into the olive grove after dusk, where I’m supposed to be alone.
“You don’t cast a shadow when the moon is full,” she says, arms crossed, eyes sharp.
I’ve killed men for less than the challenge in her beautiful brown eyes. But somehow, she sees me. Not with fear. Not with the awe most humans wear when they sense what I am.
She sees me like she’s already claimed me.
I go still. Centuries have taught me how to kill before a mortal can scream. But she doesn’t scream.
She smiles.
I should run.
Instead, I fall.
She keeps coming back. Every night for a week, then two. Sometimes, she talks. Sometimes, she listens. Sometimes, she sits beside me and says nothing at all, like we’re already something sacred.
It’s not supposed to mean anything. Not to me. I’ve had lovers. Fools who thought they could touch eternity and not burn.
But she’s different.
She doesn’t want eternity. She wantsme.
Our first kiss is in the chapel ruins at the edge of the cliffs, where no one goes except ghosts and fools in love. Her hands shake the first time she touches my face. Mine do, too.
I tell her what I am. A vampire. Turned long ago, before the rise of Rome, when gods still bled and shadows had teeth. I wait for the fear.
It never comes.
“Is that all?” she asks. “I thought you were going to tell me you were married.”
I laugh for the first time in forever.
She doesn't want my power. She doesn’t crave immortality like so many others who’ve found me over the years. Her reasons are simpler. More dangerous.
