Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,41

Vicki paused, she had trouble with this next bit, "Henry VIII, really did suspect?"

Henry laughed, but the sound had little humor. "Oh, he more than suspected. I discovered later that he'd ordered a stake driven through my heart, my mouth stuffed with garlic and the lips sewn shut, then my head removed and buried separately. Thank God, Norfolk remained a true friend until the end."

"You saw him again?"

"A couple of times. He understood better than I thought."

"What happened to Christina?"

"She guided me through the frenzy that follows the change. She guarded me during the year I slept as my body adapted to its new condition. She taught me how to feed without killing. And then she left."

"She left?" Vicki's brows flew almost to her hairline. "After all that, she left?"

Henry turned again to look out at the lights of the city. She could be out there, he'd never know. Nor, he had to admit a little sadly, would he care. "When the parent/child link is over, we prefer to hunt alone. Our closest bonds are formed when we feed and we can't feed from each other." He rested his hand against the glass. "The emotional bond, the love if you will, that causes us to offer our blood to a mortal never survives the change."

"But you could still... "

"Yes, but it isn't the same." He shook himself free of the melancholy and faced her again. "That also is tied too closely to feeding."

"Oh. Then the stories about vampiric... uh... "

"Prowess?" Henry supplied with a grin. "Are true. But then, we get a lot of time to practice."

Vicki felt the heat rise in her face and she had to drop her gaze. Four hundred and fifty years of practice.... Involuntarily, she clenched her teeth and the sudden sharp pain from her jaw came as a welcome distraction. Not tonight, I've got a headache. She closed the book on her lap and carefully set it aside, glancing down at her watch as she did. 4:43. I've heard some interesting confessions in my time, but this one.... The option, of course, existed to disbelieve everything she'd heard. To get out of the apartment and away from a certified nut case and call for the people in the white coats to lock Mr. Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, etcetera, etcetera, away where he belonged. Except, she did believe and trying to convince herself she didn't would be trying to convince herself of a lie.

"Why did you tell me all this?" she asked at last.

Henry shrugged. "The way I saw it, I had two options. I could trust you or I could kill you. If I trusted you first," he spread his hands, "and discovered it was a bad idea, I could still kill you before you could do me any harm."

"Now wait a minute," Vicki bridled. "I'm not that easy to kill!" He was standing at the window; ten, maybe twelve feet away. Less than a heartbeat later he sat beside her on the couch, both hands resting lightly around her neck. She couldn't have stopped him. She hadn't even seen him move. "Oh," she said.

He removed his hands and continued as though she hadn't interrupted. "But if I killed you first, well, that would be that. And I think we can help each other."

"How?" Up close, he became a little overwhelming and she had to fight the desire to move away. Or move closer. Four hundred and fifty years develops a forceful personality, she observed, shifting her gaze to the white velvet upholstery.

"The demon hunts at might. So do I. But the one who calls the demon is mortal and must live his life during the day."

"You're suggesting that we team up?"

"Until the demon is captured, yes."

She brushed the nap of the velvet back and forth, back and forth, and then looked up at him again. Light hazel eyes. I was right. "Why do you care?"

"About catching the demon?" Henry stood and paced back to the window. "I don't, not specifically, but the papers are blaming the killings on vampires and are putting us all in danger." Down below, the headlights of a lone car sped up Jarvis Street. "Until just recently, even I thought it was one of my kind; a child, abandoned, untrained."

"What, purposefully left to fend for itself?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps the parent had no idea there was a child at all."

"I thought you said there had to be an emotional bond."

"No, I said the emotional bond did not survive past