Iseult met Duncan at a Heathrow gift shop as he was buying a present for his girlfriend. It was a tall travel mug shaped as a wheelie bin and he had it up close to his face, flipping the lid roughly in time to his best faux Cockerney, saying to his mate, ‘Sharon, dahl, for you. By the way – you’re binned.’ The two of them in hysterics about it while she slipped out of her bra and popped her two top buttons before stepping from behind the paperbacks.

Duncan was tall and he was blonde. He was rugby buff and rugby lazy, his beautiful face kept pristine by too much time dodging out of tackles. None too bright, and he was quick with chinks, pakis, and poofs, right there in the New Moon, in the actual Chinese restaurant telling her nice place, shame these people get everywhere.

He was perfect.

She I loved him after six weeks, pace accelerated but her patience was wearing thin. He got that look in his eyes, flicker of fear melting into knowing disdain. Course you do, dahl. Only human, ain’t you?

But he did I love her back, that very same night, only it took a trip to the roof, it took her letting him bone her in his clumsy way under the stars she said burned as bright as their love. Her best tennis play grunt of the whole relationship was flat on her back when she finally got forty-seven down in a Times crossword bugging her for weeks – Canis Major.

Two weeks later he I loved with vigour, with almost conviction. Was it her Porche with its top down? Or was it the house in the distance as she rode him; her family’s place, with its forty-seven rooms and that didn’t include the bathrooms or the servant’s quarters.

Not that it mattered.

What mattered was getting him down into the basement where the whole family had gathered.

She said to them in her most winsome Daddy’s Little Princes simper, ‘Oh, I do so love him, so very, very much!’

When her father put the same question to Duncan, he straightened with a smirk and said, ‘Sure.’

Aside whipped the curtain and then Tristen and Belsen muscled him so fast against the wall behind he was still smirking as they put leather straps around his arms. Leather around his ankles too, and leather around his neck, his face slack jawed with horror as Tristan stepped forward with the needle and transfer line.

Iseult stepped in front of Duncan.

She said, ‘There’s his pact. The blood of a true love man will feed this family for a decade, or more.’

Relief washed Duncan’s face, and as he said, ‘But, I don’t-‘ she mashed her lips to his and put hands to his face as she kissed the life from his body. While the crowd aw-ed at true love’s last kiss as she willed these words in her head to somehow cross to his: this is from all those chinks, and pakis and poofs.