“Anyway, then she said the oddest thing,” he said, and murmured with bewilderment, “She said it just out of the blue.”
“What was that?” Jeanne Louise asked warily.
“That it was always best to go with your heart. That sometimes it wasn’t the easiest route, but it was always the right one,” Paul said solemnly.
She considered that briefly and then asked, “And kidnapping me was ‘going with your heart’?”
“I wanted you,” he said simply. “I noticed you that first day during the tour and—despite still grieving over Jerri—found myself looking for you. I varied my break times to figure out when you took yours until I had your routine down. I even took note of what you ate and drank,” Paul admitted wryly. “At first, I didn’t know why you fascinated me. Your hair is black and I’ve always preferred blondes, and then too in the beginning it was just a little more than a month after my wife died and I felt guilty as hell for even looking at you.” He grimaced, but went on, “But I just . . . every day I looked forward to taking my break so that I could just see you. It made me feel . . . I don’t know. At peace, sort of. Maybe happy.” Smiling crookedly, Paul added, “And then I began to notice your shoes and it became something of a game to see which ones you were wearing each day and I’d try to guess what mood that meant you were in.”
He set his drink on the end table and then scooted down in bed, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling as he confessed, “While it would have been easier to get Bev to the house, I wanted it to be you. I wanted you to meet Livy and like her and . . . to like me. I think I was hoping in my heart of hearts that something like this would happen. That we’d have this connection and passion.”
“And we do,” Jeanne Louise said softly, thinking that she would have to have a talk with her aunt when this was all resolved. The woman had to have read Paul’s thoughts and known what he was up to. She hadn’t intervened except to give him the nudge he needed to decide on taking her rather than the easier route of taking Bev. The woman was incredible, she thought dryly and then set her own drink on the end table on her side of the bed and lay down as well. She then rolled onto her side and propped her head on her upraised hand to peer down into his face.
Paul glanced to her, and then raised an eyebrow in question. “You don’t seem happy to know this.”
“I am,” Jeanne Louise assured him, and she was happy to know that he had been interested in her for more than turning Livy before taking her. That he’d chosen her because he’d been attracted to her for more than two years. But that didn’t change the facts, and now she had some explaining of her own to do. “Paul, immortals have laws just like mortals do.”
He blinked at what appeared to be a change of subject, but simply waited for her to continue.
“We aren’t allowed to feed on a mortal unto death. That’s to protect mortals, but it also protects our people,” she admitted and pointed out, “It would cause a frufaraw if bodies started popping up drained of blood with bite marks on them. It might lead to the discovery that our people exist.”
Paul nodded, and asked, “What happens to an immortal who breaks that law?”
“Death,” Jeanne Louise admitted, and then added, “We’re kind of strict with our laws.”
He grunted at that, and asked, “And your other laws?”
“We are also restricted to bagged blood. It too helps protect us from discovery, and breaking that law—except in an emergency—could very well mean death too.”
“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Paul muttered.
Jeanne Louise smiled slightly, but continued. “Basically, immortals are never to do anything that might draw attention to the existence of our kind. Doing so is punishable by death in every case,” She said solemnly, and then added, “But there are also two laws that were put in place to keep us from growing too quickly as a population and outgrowing our food source.”
Paul wasn’t a stupid man. Jeanne Louise knew that, so wasn’t surprised when his expression suddenly turned worried, but she continued, “One of those rules is that we are allowed only to have one child every hundred years. Breaking that law means death.”
“And the other?” he asked tensely.
Jeanne Louise took a breath, and then told him, “Each immortal is allowed to turn only one mortal in our life time.” She paused and then added, “Again, breaking that law is punishable by death.”
“And you’ve turned yours,” Paul guessed dully.
“No,” she admitted, and then before he could say anything, added, “I, like most immortals, was saving that for my life mate when I found him, in case he was mortal.”
“Life mate?” he asked uncertainly.
“That one person we cannot read or control, who could be a true mate to us. The one who reinvigorates our appetite for food and sex and who merges with us so totally during lovemaking that our passion is shared and overwhelms us both.”
“The shared pleasure?” he asked.
She nodded.
Paul blinked several times as his brain digested that and then he breathed, “You can’t read or control me.”
Jeanne Louise nodded solemnly. “You are my life mate, Paul.”
“Your life mate.” He said the words slowly as if tasting them, and then asked, “How long—I mean, does this shared pleasure and stuff fade off, or . . . ?”
“No. Immortals mate for life,” she assured him. “They are truly mated till death do they part.”