ground by the fire, and he ran his hand down to her waist, pinning her with the weight of his chest.
“No, roll over,” she murmured.
He obeyed her, and then she was sitting on top of him. She was so light he could barely feel her weight.
“My name is Jessenia,” she said, “and you are my other half.”
She leaned down, and he expected her to kiss him again. But she moved her mouth to his neck, and before he realized what was happening, she drove her teeth into throat. The pain was blinding, and he bucked hard to throw her off. But she held on, gripping him and draining his blood.
His mind went blank.
Then he was lost again in the glorious images of rocky beaches with saltwater spray, new cities to explore, ancient churches, lush forests, mountains . . . and Jessenia always beside him, always smiling and laughing or lost in wonder or offering ideas for the next place to go. The pain in his throat vanished. The beating of his heart slowed and slowed. So lost in the lovely visions, he was only dimly aware of his heart. He saw himself sitting with Jessenia at a fine inn, and she offered him a goblet of red wine. He drank deeply. It was delicious.
Then he opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back with her on top, leaning over him . . . and her torn wrist was in his mouth. He was drinking her blood. He was gulping in mouthfuls.
Shock hit him like cold water.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
And he couldn’t stop. She caressed his face and murmured in his ear. A few moments later, everything went black.
When he next woke, he could hear all the insects of the forest.
He turned his head and saw Jessenia sitting near him. She crawled closer and smiled.
“You’re awake. I did not know how long you would sleep.”
He felt different. The fire was long out, but he was not cold. Memories came rushing back, and he knew he should be horrified, enraged. He should want to kill her.
But he didn’t.
With her face leaning close to his, he only wanted her to wash those perfect images of their journeys through his mind again.
“Can you walk?” she asked. “We should go and stay at an inn until you’ve completely finished the change and you’re ready to feed. But you cannot feed without me along at first, not until you’ve learned how.”
“Feed?”
“Just come.”
She drew him up to his feet, and they untied their horses, leaving the dead fire behind and the small patch of ground where Robert lost one life . . . and began another.
The first weeks of his undead existence passed quickly, but he never forgot them.
He was a not a fanciful man, and he took no stock in myths and superstitions.
So this new reality—clearly no myth—was something he accepted as an event he could not change.
He might have questioned more, even regretted more, had Jessenia not been at his side, helping him every step of the way, or as much as he allowed her to help. He never realized how alone he had been before her.
She was just a slip of a girl. A gypsy sprite.
Yet she bubbled over with life to a degree that left him in awe. He would have died for her.
Not long after the night by their campfire, he began growing uncomfortable, hollow and agitated.
“We need to go out,” Jessenia said.
They left their inn and walked among the people of the village. He wasn’t even sure which village.
“Where are we?”
“It doesn’t matter yet,” she answered, looking around. She spotted a smithy with a red glow coming from somewhere inside. “This way.”
When they reached the front doors, she stopped him. “Just try to watch me, but don’t come all the way in until I call for you.”
He frowned in confusion, but the hollow feeling inside him was growing worse, and she had always known what to do before. So from the side of the doorway, he watched her go in. She approached a young man standing by brazier with a steel mallet in his hand.
The young man looked up in surprise, but Jessenia smiled.
“Sorry to bother you so late, but my horse has gone lame, just down the street. He’s bad enough that I didn’t want to try to make him walk. Could you come take a look? I can pay you.”
The man laid down the mallet and took off his apron. His face was sweating. “I