"In the beginning, I thought it would drive me mad. All I knew was that blood eased the pain, and that the sunlight that I had once loved now meant death. Even then, I didn't want to believe. And then, one night, I looked in a mirror..."
He had never forgotten the slow horror that had spread through him when he stared into that glass, expecting to see his image reflected back at him, and saw only the room behind him.
"I ran away from my home, from all who knew me. I had hoped that I would be able to live some semblance of a normal life in another place, that I would be able to marry and have children. I know now how foolish those hopes were, but in the beginning I didn't realize that I had lost all hope of living as a man. In time, I learned that I was not a man at all."
Restless now, he stood up, his gaze fixed on something only he could see.
"I was in Italy when I met another vampyre. Salvatore was one of the ancient ones. He taught me what it meant to be a Vampyre, told me that I could be a monster, striking terror in the hearts of mortals, or I could hide myself away and live off the blood of beasts, or I could dwell somewhere in the middle, neither man nor monster.
"And that is what I have done. I never stay longer than fifteen or twenty years in any one place. I have already stayed here too long. Soon I shall go to one of my other dwellings and stay there until people began to talk about my strange way of living, until they begin to notice that I do not age, and then I shall move again."
"You're telling me the truth, aren't you? You're not making this up just to scare me?"
Rayven nodded.
"What about Bevins? Does he know what you are?"
"Of course. We are more than master and servant. My blood runs in his veins." There had been times when taking blood from Bevins had meant the difference between life and death. Yet he had never taken enough to bequeath the Dark Gift to his servant. In over four hundred years, he had never made another Vampyre.
"You fed on him?" He didn't miss the quick look of revulsion in her eyes.
He nodded curtly, wondering if she would ask the question he dreaded.
"When you bought me from my father, were you going to feed on me, too?"
So, he thought, there it was. He took a deep breath and then, very slowly, he nodded.
"But you didn't?" She lifted her hands to her neck, her fingers exploring. There were no marks. Relief whooshed from her lungs in a deep sigh.
And then she frowned. There had been marks once, soon after she came to the castle the first time. She had asked Bevins to look at them for her, and he had assured her there was nothing to worry about.
"I rarely drank from your neck," Rayven said quietly, "and when I did, I had only to run my tongue over the wounds to heal them." But he had forgotten that one night.
"You drank my blood?" She stared at him, wondering why the idea didn't repulse her. She should be fainting or screaming hysterically. She should be horrified. Instead, she felt remarkably calm, as if she were listening to a story that had nothing to do with her.
"No more than a thimbleful at a time." He took a step back. His cloak wrapped around him, enfolding him. "Had I given you my blood in return, we would be bonded."
"What does that mean, bonded?"
"It means you would be able to read my thoughts as I can read yours."
"That's what you've done to Bevins, isn't it? He's your slave?"
"No. We share only a bond." A bond born of blood and a vow.
That didn't seem so bad, Rhianna mused. She wished she could read his thoughts now. Perhaps then she would be better able to understand him.
"There's another bond," Rayven said. "A deeper bond, one more binding."
"Oh?"
She wasn't sure she wanted to hear it.
"It's a bond that cannot be broken except by death. Mine, or yours. You don't know how I've longed to make you mine, Rhianna, to bind you to me. And yet I could not, for to do so would be to take away your freedom, and I found I could not do that to