those gloved hands wrapped around some poor unfortunate woman while he drank of her blood.
"Is this something you have to do?" She knew it was, yet the words slipped out before she could stop them. "Couldn't you just rob a blood bank or something?"
"I prefer my nourishment fresh and warm," he replied bluntly.
"I could warm it up in the microwave," she suggested, hoping to erase the hard look in his eyes. "Sort of like a TV dinner."
She glanced away, unable to believe she was making jokes about such a gruesome subject.
"This is what I am, Sarah," Gabriel said quietly. "Can you accept it?"
With a small cry, Sarah threw her arms around his waist and held him close.
"It doesn't matter, really," she said fervently. "But how did you ever get used to it?"
He let out a sigh that seemed to rise from the soles of his feet. "It's a craving, Sarah, an addiction that can't be ignored. I need it to survive. In the beginning, I tried to do without it, but the pain was excruciating, like nothing you can imagine."
"Have you... have you killed very many people?"
Gently, he wrapped his arms around her. "I've existed a long time. It's no longer necessary for me to kill to survive, cara. I don't need as much blood as I did when first I was made. Those I use feel no pain, nor do they remember anything about what happened."
"You hypnotize them?"
He smiled faintly. "A handy trick, for a vampire."
"There was a story in the newspaper a while back about a woman who claimed to have been attacked by a man just like Dracula..."
Gabriel grunted softly. "Someone happened upon us before I could erase the memory from her mind."
He pressed a kiss to the top of Sarah's head, gave her shoulders a squeeze, and released her. "I won't be gone long."
Sarah nodded, aware of his gaze searching hers, judging her reaction. She should be used to it by now, she thought, so why was it so hard to accept? She'd known what he was in a previous life, had accepted it without hesitation. Why couldn't she do that now? If she was the same woman, why didn't she feel the same? Was it possible that the soul remained the same, but not the mind, or its perception of life?
"I will not let you go again, Sarah." His voice was hoarse, edged with what sounded curiously like regret. "If ever you feel that you can no longer accept me for what I am, if you ever wish to be free of me, then you must destroy me."
"I couldn't!"
"I will not let you go."
His eyes burned into hers with an intensity that she had never seen before. It was a look even more frightening than the blood hunger she had seen blazing in his eyes.
"There are three ways to kill a vampire, Sarah. Drive a stake through his heart. Cut off his head. Expose him to the sun."
She felt the color drain from her face. "No..."
"There's a small window in the cellar. If you ever wish to be free of me, you have only to remove the board from the window while I sleep. Nature will take care of the rest."
She pressed her hands over her ears. "Stop it! I don't want to hear any more!"
Reaching into his pocket, Gabriel withdrew a large brass key and forced it into her hand. "This fits the lock on the cellar door."
"I don't want it!"
"Keep it. The day may come when you'll wish you had it."
"Gabriel, you're scaring me."
"You should be scared," he retorted bitterly. "I am, after all, a monster."
"Dammit, I hate it when you talk like that. You're no more a monster than I am."
"Then why are you afraid?"
She wanted to deny it, but she couldn't. Deep inside where she didn't look too often, she was afraid, not of him, but of what he was.
"What's happened?" she asked. "What's changed? Is it what I said earlier? If it is, I'm sorry. It's just that I hate to think of you doing what you have to do to survive."
"I understand, cara," he said, his voice low and soft. "I understand better than you think."
"I love you." She whispered the words as though they could somehow make everything right again.
"I pray you don't regret it," he murmured, and left the room, the long black coat swirling around his ankles.
She stared after him for a long time, the key clutched in her hand. She had never gone into the