Toga Guy chuckled. “Close. It’s actually Khent.”
Khent frowned. “I did not giveyouleave to use it.”
Val stared from Toga Guy to Khent and back again. “Um, who are you? Not you, Khent. You, Toga Guy.”
Khent smirked, and Val wished he weren’t so tempting. Even knowing he was a fanger, a lethal blood drinker, she couldn’t deny he made her heart race. Unfortunately, not from fear but from attraction.
Toga Guy just sighed. “Mortals. My name is Morpheus.”
She blinked. “TheMorpheus? The god of dreams?”
He buffed his nails on his chest. “In all my divine glory. Impressed?”
She looked him over. “Yes.”
He smiled.
Khent frowned.
Morpheus’s smile grew bigger. “I’m here because we have problems, children.”
She now recognized the aura around him, a divine presence with that otherworldly glow. Most humans would only feel his power, but a necromancer would sense that bridge to anotherplane, so in tune with her access to the liminality that led to death.
Khent scoffed. “I’m over five hundred years old. I’m no child.”
“But you are. A child of Selene and Ambrogio.”
Val knew the story. Ambrogio, a mortal, had fallen in love with Selene, a moon goddess and Apollo’s sister. Apollo didn’t like that at all. So he cursed Ambrogio to a lifeless existence without Selene, turning him into a raging beast. But Selene’s love was true, and when Ambrogio hungered, she fed him her own blood.
Thus the first vampires were born. Because they were so powerful, the gods caused them to hate everyone, especially their own kind. Only vampires of the same clan, family known as kin, could tolerate one another. Even in the same tribe, reaper to reaper or strigoi to strigoi, vampires were consumed by a desire to destroy those not of their own individual clans.
Thus the gods had hampered the vampires from growing too powerful with an effectiveness that withstood the test of time.
She studied Khent. From what Talon had told her, the reaper lived with vampires from different tribes, which shouldn’t be possible.
Morpheus nodded at her. “Yes, it’s possible. But only because a goddess interfered.”
She frowned. “Are you reading my mind?”
Khent cocked his head. “What did she say?”
“None of your business, reaper.” Val glared at him. “Mind your place.”
That set him off. His eyes turned red. Had they been awake in reality, she would have known genuine fear. But here in a dream, when he attacked and lifted her by her throat, she snapped her fingers and took him to his knees.
“I don’t think so.” Val stepped back, looming over the reaper. “In my domain, I rule.”
Morpheus stared, wide-eyed, then started clapping. “Brava, my dear. That was masterful. Eh, reaper? Who’s the bitch now?” He laughed uproariously.
Khent fumed, his aura so dark it threatened to pull her in.
She felt a frisson of fear despite herself.
He growled at her, “I will drain you dry and puppet your corpse long after your soul leaves this world. I’ll make you kill everyone you treasure with your own two hands while you watch, helpless and terrified.”
As threats went, it wasn’t bad. “Meh. Heard that one before. There’s no one left I care about.”
“Not even your shapeshifter boyfriend?”
