lunch after, but neither of them had talked about the appointments. Not that Ildaria had had much to talk about. All she’d done was give Dr. Greg a brief, emotionless rundown of her history and the reason she was there. By the time she’d finished, her time was up, but Greg had suggested dating and getting to know each other was good as he walked her out.
In truth, Ildaria wasn’t sure how this counseling business would go. Dr. Greg seemed nice enough, but . . . She supposed she just didn’t understand how talking about something she’d avoided even thinking about for a couple of centuries was going to help her. But she’d continue to go and see. She didn’t want to get intimate with G.G., have a freak-out, and hurt him. She hadn’t worried about that before he’d brought it up, and she hadn’t panicked so far in the dreams. But Ildaria could remember her reaction to Juan as clearly as if it had been yesterday. It had been so sudden and shocking. One minute she’d been weeping, confused, and frightened, and the next she’d been enraged and determined to hurt him. She was willing to go slow and get counseling to avoid something like that happening with G.G.
“Wow, Ildaria,” Sofia breathed. “Biting off an immortal’s dick? You are one fierce bitch. Even I wouldn’t have the balls to do that.”
“He deserved it,” Ildaria snarled.
“Yeah,” she agreed easily.
“And I didn’t know he was immortal at the time,” she pointed out. “I didn’t know about immortals at all.”
“No,” Sofia said, and then tilted her head. “So that’s how you got turned, huh?”
“Si.” She sighed the word.
Sofia nodded and then said, “Weird, huh?”
“What is?” Ildaria asked with uncertainty.
“Well, when you think about it, you were really kind of lucky that an immortal attacked you,” Sofia said slowly.
“What?” Ildaria gasped the word with disbelief.
“Well, you never would have become immortal if he hadn’t, and then you never would have met me or any of the other awesome peeps who work here,” she pointed out. “Not to mention G.G.” Standing now, Sofia headed for the door, saying, “Time for you to knock off and take H.D. upstairs. See you tomorrow.”
Ildaria stared after her blankly, her mind whirling. She would never be able to think of that attack as being even a “kind of lucky” event in her life. But as she considered Sofia’s words she realized that if Juan hadn’t attacked her, she never would have been turned.
One hundred, fifty, or even ten years ago she might not have thought that was a bad thing. But now . . .
Ildaria glanced around the office and then down to where H.D. was curled up by her feet. She liked her life. She was not only studying, but working, in the field she wanted. She loved school, loved her apartment, loved her job, both jobs actually. She had G.G. who was kind and considerate and funny, and she had great friends like Jess in Montana, and Sofia and the others who worked here, not to mention Marguerite, who was quickly becoming more of a surrogate mother or aunt. The woman called twice a week to check on her, and had had her out to dinner at the house at least twice since she’d moved out.
True, her life wasn’t perfect. She was making good money, but tuition and books would eat up a lot of that when the fall semester started. And no doubt working the hours she did and attending full-time classes would be hard. Then too while G.G. had agreed to be her life mate, he hadn’t agreed to turn and they hadn’t consummated their relationship yet. But still, she liked her life. She was happy and hopeful and . . . and she liked herself too, Ildaria realized. All of her experiences had shown her that she was strong and smart and a good person who risked herself to help others . . .
In that moment Ildaria could see how the events in her life—even being molested at four, and being attacked at fourteen—had led to her being who and where she now was.
So . . . while she would never use the word lucky to describe the attack, she could at least accept that without it, she wouldn’t be who and where she was today.
The idea was new, and one it would take her a while to get used to, but she kind of liked it. She remembered hearing the saying once