A Bite to Remember Page 0,116

if you were mortal, staking you out would be a waste of time, but it's perfect now that Vincent has turned you."

"He didn't," Jackie said.

"He didn't what?" Lily asked with amusement. "Are you going to try to convince me you aren't immortal now? I have seen your eyes and unlike me, you don't wear contacts. Besides, I can read your mind, Jackie. You are an immortal."

"I am immortal, but Vincent didn't turn me. You did," Jackie said solemnly.

"You can't think I would believe that nonsense?" Lily asked, but there was uncertainty on her face as she concentrated on Jackie. Apparently disturbed by something she was reading there, she muttered, "I would know if I'd turned you."

"Yes, well, perhaps I should say I turned myself then," Jackie said quietly. "When I bit you, I swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of your blood, enough to start the turn. It's why I didn't bleed out and die before they got me back to the house."

Lily peered down at her own wrist and Jackie saw that it was perfect now. There wasn't a mark on it from the other night, it had completely healed.

"It hurt like the devil at the time," Lily muttered, then laughed. "This is perfect. You turned yourself. I'll have to watch that in the future." She shook her head, then said, "It doesn't matter who turned you. He claimed you as his true life mate."

"Only to piss off Cassius," Jackie assured her. "Cassius and I have a history. Vincent, and the others, knew about it. It's why they were all so cold to him when he came up to us at the service tonight. It's also why Vincent claimed me as life mate. He wanted to put a scare into Cassius."

Lily's eyes narrowed and Jackie let her feelings for Vincent show, along with her fears that he didn't really think of her as a life mate. It was the best she could do with Lily able to read her thoughts, but the woman shook her head. "Nice try, but I have seen him with you. He's been eating since you arrived. He's smiling all the time, laughing?

"According to the agency files, Vincent is happy-go-lucky and always smiling," Jackie interrupted with surprise. "That's hardly proof of his thinking I'm his true life mate."

Lily snorted. "Only around his family. Around them, he's Mr. Smiley, but the rest of the time..." She shrugged. "I don't think he's a very happy vampire. In fact, before you came along, I thought he might be heading toward that terrible self-destructive state that some vampires go through. But then you arrived and he started smiling and laughing. It was like he'd found a new lease on life.

"In fact, I should really thank you. Before you, attacking his business, then the people around him upset him, but not as much as I wanted it to. Then you came and reawakened him and now everything matters to him, but especially you."

Jackie stayed silent, but hoped what Lily said was true. She hoped she'd made Vincent happy, and made him smile and find his pleasure in life again. He'd certainly shown her how to enjoy life, something she seemed to have lost at nineteen. The years since then had seemed somewhat colorless until coming to California and meeting Vincent. But there was still so much she wanted to do with him. Jackie wished she'd told him she loved him last night while she'd had the chance. She wished she could make love to him one more time, that she could take a night swim with him, laugh, cuddle, and kiss him.

Jackie supposed she should be grateful she'd had a chance to know him at all and taste the happiness she could have had with him. But it wasn't enough, she wanted more, and this woman who looked like a child planned to make sure that didn't happen.

Jackie frowned. "Why do you look so young?"

"What?" Lily seemed startled by the question.

"Nanos make you your peak health, strength, speed, etc," she pointed out. "Yet you look like a child, and you're incredibly thin. Being that thin can't be your peak health."

A sudden rage covered Lily's face as she said, "I had no one to look after me once they'd killed my William. No one to teach me. I didn't know what I could and couldn't do. I thought being a vampire meant I couldn't eat anymore, so I stopped eating food. But, with no one to bring me donors to feed from,