Lissianna nodded. "It was easier before he turned her, but afterward he could still control her. Only then she was aware when he did it. She also could then read his thoughts. At least she could when he wasn't guarding them. Father couldn't or didn't guard them when inebriated."
"She knew about his drinking and womanizing," Greg realized with horror. "And she'd know and resent it every time he controlled her."
Lissianna nodded. "Worse yet. Mother learned he'd married her because she looked like his dead wife from Atlantis, but that he was disappointed because, of course, she wasn't his dead wife and so wasn't the same. He'd made a mistake he bitterly regretted and, I think, punished her for it by deliberately not guarding his thoughts."
"It sounds like a nightmare," he said grimly. "Why didn't your mother leave?"
"It was a difficult situation. He had sired her."
?'Sired?"
"They say the turning is as painful as birth, and someone who is turned is born into a new existence, so the one who did the turning is his or her sire," she explained.
"Oh, I see." Greg considered that for a moment, then asked, "Painful, huh?"
Lissianna nodded solemnly. "I have never witnessed one myself, but it is said to be very painful."
He pursed his lips, then said, "So, she stayed because he sired her?"
Lissianna grimaced. "Well, partly. I guess you could say she felt beholden to him for it. He'd given her new life, as well as her children and all the comforts and wealth she enjoyed. Without him, Mother would have remained a maid in the castle where she was born, worked to death at a young age... which was something he reminded her of every time she seemed to be reaching the end of her patience with him."
"Manipulative," Greg said tightly. "What was the other part of why she stayed?"
Lissianna shrugged. "The same reason most women stayed in unhappy marriages back then... she had nothing. He was all-powerful, everything was his so long as he lived, and he could have punished her severely--and with the blessing of the law and society--had she left him."
They began to walk again, and she said, "Fortunately, my father bored easily and would leave for decades at a time as he romanced some woman or other. Unfortunately, he always returned. We were happiest when he was away. I suspect it was like that for Mother through most of their marriage."
"And having witnessed this for two hundred years, I
suppose you would be reluctant to subject yourself to marriage and the possibility of suffering the same way."
Lissianna stared blindly up at the next painting, his words running through her mind. She'd never considered how her parents' marriage had affected her, but in truth, she was terrified of making a mistake and being miserable for nearly seven hundred years like her mother.
"I understand her not divorcing in medieval or Victorian times, it simply wasn't done, but nowadays it's common," Greg said, distracting her. "Do you think if he'd survived, either he or Marguerite would have--"
"No," she interrupted with certainty.
"Why?"
"Divorce is not something we take lightly."
"Why?" he repeated.
Lissianna hesitated, then said, "We're allowed to sire only one individual in our lives. For most, it is their mate. That being the case, it's better to take your time and be sure it's the right one."
"You're allowed to turn only one person, ever?" Greg asked with amazement. "But what if you've chosen the wrong one?"
She shrugged. "Most stay together anyway. Those few who part are either alone, or find mates among our kind and need not turn anyone. Others part and are either alone, or spend their lives drifting from one mortal lover to the next, never able to remain more than ten years or so before the fact that, they do not age begins to show."
"What about if you sire your life mate and he dies? Can you sire another one?"
"Good God, no." Lissianna laughed at the suggestion. "Mates would suddenly be suffering accidental beheadings all over the place if that were allowed."
"I suppose." Greg nodded. "But why can you only "sire' one person anyway?"
"Population control," she answered promptly, then pointed out, "It wouldn't be good if the feeders outpopulated the hosts. It's also for that reason we're allowed to have only one child every hundred years."
Greg blew a silent whistle through his teeth. "That would make a heck of an age difference between you and each of your siblings." He paused and glanced back over the pictures they'd already looked at, then said, "So Etienne is three hundred and something."