there. Paintings and drawings I’d collected hung on the cream papered walls. All my books, including those from Kurt reposed in shelves built into the wall flanking the fireplace and little art objects I’d picked up in our travels arranged tastefully around the room. Deep blue Chinese rugs and simple light furnishings completed the decor. Every vase was crammed full of creamy roses. Ethan’s hand was in the details.

I gasped, turning to him. “I’m not coming back to you.”

“These trappings are meaningless.”

“Lots of memories attached.”

“Not all good, I’m afraid.”

“Not good at all.”

He stood in the doorway, dejected and weary. “My life ended when I cast you out.”

I looked away because I didn’t trust myself. Was it always so? Would I always feel this for my maker? Was it the blood that bound us together? All the nights I’d spent rehearsing the things I’d say to him, my grand vindication scene. It was no fucking good. He still got to me. I turned, trying desperately to hold him off. “I’m not giving Kurt up.”

For a moment he was silent. “I did you a great wrong, Mia.”

“You did me a great many wrongs! You owe me Ethan but this has nothing to do with money. Why really did you make me a vampire? Don’t give me the usual line about seeing me in that play.”

“I loved you.”

“Bullshit! You made me to get back at Brovik for Kurt. Don’t you know how much I’ve suffered because of it?”

“You were the dawn of a new day!”

“Don’t quote that fucking play to me!”

“It’s true! It is just as I say. Brovik promised a new world, Mia, but it was an evil place, without love, without honor. You were proud and strong. Nothing could stand in your way.”

“You saw a character in a play, Hilde… the Bird of Prey. Mia was just a girl, wanting to be loved! I aborted the only child I’ll ever carry to be with you. You had children. I never will. I’m a woman, but I no longer can give life, only take it!”

“I’m truly sorry for that.”

“And you threw me away like garbage when you finally figured out I wasn’t what you thought!”

“Don’t.”

“You abandoned your mortal children and you abandoned me!”

“Stop!” He raised his hand to me, but then slowly lowered it, his face stricken. “I am a monster, but I will always love you.”

He looked so much older than I remembered, his face lined with pain. I bent down and kissed his lips, and somehow the spell was broken. I knew for sure I’d never return to him.

“I’ll always love you too, Ethan, but I can’t stay with you.”

“You choose Kurt?”

It wasn’t the wild, terrible longing I had for Ethan. It was much deeper, down in the marrow of my bones. Kurt and I shared one skin. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the realization finally hit me. “After all you did to me, I thought I couldn’t love anyone, but I do.”

Ethan didn’t acknowledge my words. He just got up, gathering his composure about him. “You’ll find papers in the drawer of the desk. It’s all yours.”

“Not yet. All those years you hid so much from me.” My fingers ran over the face I knew so well. “So many things I don’t understand. Open yourself just once.”

His face clenched. “All right— you should know. This I owe you more than anything.”

I led him to a white silk-covered chaise. I loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. I brushed my lips down to the pulse. His still felt like satin on my skin as he kissed my wrist.

Light and sound filled my consciousness, hundreds of voices speaking at once all around us, the voices of his long memory. I saw glimpses of his past, his dysfunctional childhood, the tutor he’d fallen in love with, the baby girl he fathered with a slave, his unhappy marriage to Sally Anne and his joy in his two sons. All these demons he’d held close for so long.

Then inside me, wind howled and rain began to fall, bolts of lightning cut a ragged gash across the sky over a city with cobblestone streets. I knew it was long ago, New York, seeing it through Ethan’s eyes. There in the gaslight stood Brovik, dressed all in black like a vampire in a movie, with a long cape, and his flaxen hair blowing long and free. He held out a gloved hand and smiled serenely, so that Ethan let go of the weapon he