At first I was surprised to see that the stores sold things like make-up and shampoo and stuff, but then I realised that those must be for the humans. Personal hygiene isn’t an issue for vampires. Brushing my teeth or hair isn’t necessary. Nor are body lotions or perfumes. We each have our own alluring scent and the texture of our skin is beyond perfect, with no freckles or scars or moles. My skin will become paler over time due to my nocturnal lifestyle and lack of exposure to sunlight.

For the purpose of luring in prey, vampirism grants you sexual appeal by illuminating your best features. This means, for me, that my long dark hair is never unruly or greasy or tangled, it instead has a silky appearance and is extremely soft to the touch. My lips are constantly glossy and a plum-pink colour. My aquamarine eyes always look bright and inviting as though I’d used eye drops, and they have the darkest, thickest eyelashes to frame them. Still, I was no Keja.

Once the shopping was over, Fletcher and I had pasta for lunch at one of the cafes. He introduced me to a grape flavoured NST, which tasted like red wine – very nice and now officially my favourite. By the time I’d arrived back at my apartment there was no time for me to unpack all my shopping bags so I put my new batch of NSTs in the fridge and darted down to my office in the Command Centre.

Where the recruits’ personal files on my desk as I’d expected them to be? No.

I knew it was rude, but I searched Jared’s desk seen as he was intent on playing games. It would seem that he’d anticipated that I might do this as all his drawers were locked and nothing of interest was on the surface of the bureau. Plonker. Well he really didn’t know me at all if he thought that this would be enough to rock my resolve. I’d just have to learn about the recruits on meeting them.

Were they in the training arena waiting for me? No. Not even one of them. Were they all plonkers as well?

I ventured around the squads’ grounds, but there was no sign of any of them. Nor were they in the gymnasium or training with the other squads in the rainforests or even lounging lazily at the beach. After twenty minutes of wandering aimlessly, I tried the canteen. There they were having a freaking food fight. Yes, they really were plonkers as well.

“Oi!” I hollered. “There better be a very good reason why you’re all in here instead of in the training arena.”

Some of them sighed, some of them whined, some of them snorted, and the others whistled as they suddenly found the decor to be fascinating.

“Well?” I demanded.

“Easy there, Commander,” said Max the Slap-head. “It’s nothing personal, okay, we just don’t think we need tutoring on our powers. Commander Michaels told us that usually when squads are assembled the recruits’ gifts are raw so they need a lot of training. We were selected for having such good control of our gifts already seen as Antonio needs us ready soon. So Commander Michaels said it’s up to us whether we go to training with you or not.”

“I’ll bet he did,” I said through gritted teeth. I so wanted to put Jared on his backside again.

Max flashed me a flirtatious smile. “Why don’t you come and join us, me and you could -”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, Slap-head.”

“Hey, I told you, call me Max.”

“While you’re being a wanker, you’re Slap-head.” I glanced around the ten blokes. “So that’s how you all feel?” Again I was talking through my teeth.

There were nods and ‘yes’s.

“It’s lucky for you lot that right now I’m fuming more with Commander Michaels than I am with all you, but I’m warning you now – and don’t take this lightly – if you’re not at the training arena tomorrow I swear to God I’ll put every one of you on your lazy arses.”

I could have kicked their backsides right this minute, but all I could think about was snapping Jared in half. It was one thing to mislay the files or other menial crap like that, but it was another thing altogether to undermine my authority to the recruits. Besides, kicking their backsides wouldn’t make them think of me as an authority figure while they were in this mentality.

Lucky for me but terribly unfortunate for him, Jared was in the office fumbling through papers when I entered. Enraged to the point of feeling homicidal, I hadn’t even bothered bidding Fletcher hi. “What do you think you’re playing at?” I growled loudly at Jared as I barged in.

Even though he had his face down in the papers, I could see his mouth twitching as he strained to contain a giggle. Oh he knew what this was about, and he’d been looking forward to this dispute. “Training session not go well?”

“You think you’re being clever? You think it’s funny?”

“Sorry, Sam, but I’ve no idea what you’re -”

Sucking the energy around me into my palms I sent a gust of wind at him, blowing the papers from his hands. “You look at me while I’m talking to you.”

He looked up. “I wouldn’t call this talking.”

“You told them they didn’t have to come to training!”

“That’s not what I said. I told the guys that I thought they had good control of their gifts and that if they didn’t think they needed extra training then that was up to them, they’re mature enough to decide for themselves.”

“Mature? Know where they were? The canteen, having a food fight! You gonna try to tell me they’re models of maturity?”

His mouth curved into a smile; he didn’t even try to hide it.

“You know, I expected you to make things difficult but I really didn’t think you’d go as far as to undermine my authority like that. Now is not the time for fun and games, The Hollow’s walls are going to be attacked! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I already told you that I didn’t think I needed your help, you already knew that.”

“Is this still about your pride? After what you did today you shouldn’t have any.”

“Look, Sam, here’s how you’ve got to look at it: if the guys had respected your authority then it wouldn’t have mattered what I said to undermine it, they’d have been in that arena waiting for you. If you can’t control them enough to even get them to show up then you’ve got no chance of managing them in a training arena.”

I took a long breath. “You’re right. They don’t respect my authority. They respect you more than they respect me.”

“Yeah.”

“Then that leaves me only one option.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll just have to whip you silly so they see exactly who they should respect.” Instantly I absorbed the energy around me and moulded it into my energy whip.

Jared raised his arms, palms out. “Now, Sam, hang on a minute.”

“Fletcher!” I called out.

Looking like a bag of nerves, he peeked through the door. “Yes?”

“Shut that door and lock it.”

“Right, luv,” he said nervously.

As soon as I heard the telling click I began to run my whip through my fingers, enjoying the feel of the energy buzzing against my skin.

“Sam, don’t do this.”

“Why Commander Michaels? You f**ked me over. You don’t want equality in this business relationship. I’m giving you what you want – just not the way around that you were hoping for.” I cracked the whip at him, catching his bottom lip.

“Sod of a bitch,” he cursed, wiping at the blood just before the wound healed.

I cracked the whip again, catching his left ear.

“Sam, stop! I don’t want to fight you again.”

“Well you’re gonna.” The whip split the top of his right ear open this time.

“Sam.” The word dripped with warning.

I snickered and lashed the whip again. He yelped as it ripped through the sleeve of his top and sliced the skin of his forearm. His expression said ‘fine then’.

A spray of electric sparks abruptly came at me from shaking fingers. I held my palm out straight, slamming a protective shield in place. The sparks bounced back at Jared but he leapt in the air and did a perfect summersault over me. However by the time he had landed on his feet I was facing him with an energy ball in hand. He ducked, making the ball hit the filing cabinet behind him.

My wrists suddenly sizzled with pain; Jared had gripped them tight and was sending electric shocks through my hands and up my arms. Which would have been clever had it not been for the fact that the source of my gift wasn’t my hands; they were just my preferred outlet. Closing my eyes I inhaled deeply, concentrating hard on breathing in the energy around me, and I then whistled out a current of air strong enough to send him crashing into the already broken filing cabinets. Again he cursed at me.

In less than the time it took me to blink, Jared was behind me pinning my arms to my sides. I realised he had teleported himself there. Not as clever as he’d thought it was. I absorbed more energy into my palms and then wiggled my trapped arms enough to allow my hands to slide behind my back. If it had been anyone but Jared I might have felt guilty about what I was about to do, but I was sick of him being so sexist, sick of the way he looked down on me, and sick of how I still found him to be the most gorgeous bloke I’d ever seen. I slapped my hands over his crotch and emitted the energy I’d absorbed in the form of boiling heat.

Jared cried out and released me. When I turned he was on all fours, coughing and making noises that were a mixture of pain and total aggravation. Finally he peered up at me, his irises red. I expected him to try to electrocute me again, or curse at me, or growl at me, or maybe even strike me. Instead, he abruptly grabbed my leg and yanked. Suddenly I was lying on my back, my head the only thing not connecting with the floor, being slid toward him. And then he was on top of me and his mouth had closed over mine.

I might have fought him if there hadn’t been a blast of heat inside me the very second that his lips touched mine. And then bang; self-control gone. Conscious thought gone. Rest of the world gone. All I was aware of was this moment.

The kiss was hungry, dominant, possessive, demanding everything from me. His hands slithered into my hair and tugged and pulled, causing the sweetest pain. Each time his tongue stroked mine the heat just intensified until my whole body was burning. The feel of him was entirely too much but at the same time was nowhere near enough. I slid my arms around his neck and pulled him tighter against me and he growled into my mouth.

It had been so long, too long, since anyone had touched me like this. But nothing in my vampire life or my human life came remotely close to this moment. His h*ps rocked against mine, feeding the ache that was ruling my body and making me arch into him. And, God, the way he was kissing me...It was like he was claiming me, and the kiss just kept deepening and deepening, taking me down to a place where nothing but Jared and the feel of him mattered. I was ready to moan in protest when his lips left mine, but then they began to kiss their way down my throat and my body practically turned to liquid.

Sam, I heard in my head as he scraped his teeth over the pulse in my neck. I want you.

And God I wanted him too, but suddenly I had the sensation of someone splashing cold water on me and of another voice in my head. A browbeating voice. My conscience. Then a face flashed in my mind and I remembered that none of this should feel right.

“Joy.” That was all I managed to say. I breathed it more than I said it. I might see her as a twig-witch, but Jared was her boyfriend and here I was kissing him while she was wherever she was, none the wiser. That was so unlike me, but reason and rationality had just gone the second his lips united with mine.

“She’s just a consort,” he said against my neck, kissing it attentively. “I’m not committed to her, just like I’m not committed to Daniela or Tammy.”

Daniela and Tammy? There wasn’t just Joy? I didn’t know what was worse; the idea of sleeping with someone who I thought was already claimed, or the idea of sleeping with someone who would consider me nothing more than a notch on his already very busy bedpost.

He must have felt me tense beneath him because his mouth paused. “Sam?”

“Sounds like your dance card is already full.” I wriggled under him and pushed on his chest. Reluctantly he moved away.

He was gazing at me incredulously as we stood facing each other. “I don’t get it.”

Blokes! If he was a woman he’d be considered a bit of a slut, but apparently because he was a bloke it was completely normal and acceptable. “I suppose you probably don’t.”

“Look, if you’re offended that I haven’t asked you to be one of my consorts yet then, believe me, I was going to ask. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.” He said it as though I should be so unbelievably flattered that I’d be bouncing on the spot with excitement like someone who had just won X-Factor.

“Well then you won’t like this: the answer’s ‘no’.”

“You are definitely one of the most confusing women I’ve ever met in my entire human and vampire years.” His tone didn’t suggest this was a bad thing.

“Seriously, Jared, did you honestly expect to hear ‘yes, yes, a thousand times yes’ to being a live-in prostitute – who does it for free, to make things more insulting.” I waved him away from me. “If you’re horny, you have three women on call for sex for whenever you need them so you know where to go.”

“You want me, I want you. I don’t see what they have to do with what just happened. They’re just consorts. They don’t even share my apartment with me. They share a separate one together.”