Ambient Light

Prologue


Yates Colyer rolled onto his side, disgusted with himself as he heard the front door close. The woman leaving meant nothing to him. In fact, he hadn’t even bothered to get her name. What he wanted her for had little to do with needing it so he passed. As a creature of the night, he required blood once every two months or so. At his age, blood wasn’t something he was day-to-day dependent on anymore. There was a time, back when he was newly sired that he needed blood several times a day. Fortunately for him, his father had been in a position of power, giving Yates unlimited access to the town, its resources and more importantly, its warm bodies. Beggars and peasants overpopulated the area and he used to think he was doing his part to thin their numbers. They were rarely missed and on the off chance they were, no one with any kind of power paid them any heed.

Over the centuries, he learned to curb his hunger and take blood without killing the victim or donor, depending upon where and how he got it. He was a different man now, no longer killing to sate the demon within. He liked to think he had more control and more finesse. Like everything, he had to change with the times. It mattered not that he was technically still a Comte. He’d reinvented himself so many times over the course of his immortally long life that Yates no longer paid much mind to the politics of it. Throughout it all something had been missing.

It still was. What, he wasn’t sure.

With his blood hunger satisfied, he thought about what else he depended upon to survive. Sex. He needed it almost daily. He craved it as much as he craved seeing the sunrise. At least with sex, he could actually obtain the goal. The sunrise would never again be. He had vague memories of his last sunset, though at the time he wasn’t aware it would be his final one. He hadn’t asked to be brought over as a creature of the night, another form of the many demons that inhabited the earth and beyond. He’d been sired against his will and had to learn to make the best of it.

I am far from making the best of it.

All had been well until he had found her. The mysterious woman in the magazine. The one with haunting lavender eyes and a mouth that begged to be wrapped around his cock. She haunted his every moment—awake and asleep.

Yates growled as he went onto his back, hitting his bed with his fist as he thought of how his daily sexual escapades had died almost instantly since he had seen the mystery woman’s face in the magazine. Sure, he’d found beautiful women more than willing to lie with him and please him until sunrise but his cock wouldn’t cooperate. It had its sights set on one woman and one woman only. She was a stranger to him. Unfortunately, Yates knew nothing more than that she was a model.

In his line of work, he met with models nonstop. Many all but beat down his door, wanting him to photograph them because he was the best. The one who had just walked out on Yates had practically thrown herself at him, offering him free rein of her body. He had tried to take advantage of the offer but his cock refused to rise to the occasion, opting instead to lie dormant as the demon within demanded to be free. If the demon couldn’t fuck it or suck it, it seemed to think killing it would suffice. Thankfully, Yates had more than enough control to stop his demon from doing anything of the sort. He did, however, seem to lack the ability to kick-start his cock.

Sighing, he rolled out of bed and went to the magazine featuring the pictures of his mystery woman. It sat on a two-person table, positioned near the far end of his bedroom. He took a step toward it and scowled as he stepped on an open book. He liked his home tidy, everything in its place, and he valued his book collection greatly. The woman who had just left had insisted on leafing through various books then discarding them over her shoulder. He should have known then his dick wouldn’t want to be in her. Anyone who couldn’t appreciate a good read wasn’t worth fucking.

He sighed.

Yates ran his hand over the edge of the circular table. It was a piece he had acquired during his time in his homeland—France. Its flame mahogany veneer had caught his eye and the tapered, fluted legs kept it. He had an eye for detail and for fine things. That was part of the reason the woman from the magazine had held his attention. The magazine was already open to the pages she graced. As his gaze skimmed over the alluring raven-haired goddess, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach began. She was so beautiful, unearthly so. Never before had a woman called to him as this one did. Those lavender eyes—he wanted to see them staring up at him while he rammed his body into hers.

She’s my mate.

The thought nearly knocked him over. For four centuries he had lived in darkness, refusing to believe any such person existed. Could it be that by merely opening a magazine, he had finally located her?

There is only one way to find out.