fierce protection began to build inside him. No matter where they went, no matter what they saw or what they did, he would protect her from people, from the sun, from poverty, from everything.
Her passion for adventure began to combine with his desire to protect inside of him . . . inside of her until he could no longer tell the difference. The joining and meshing of half-mad drives went on and on in waves through his body until he felt it build to an almost intolerable bubble, and then it burst and his body shuddered in a shock of intense pleasure. Jessenia was still gripping the nape of his neck, and she gasped aloud—as if she still needed to breathe.
“Robert,” she was saying over and over in his ear. “I knew, I knew.”
He pressed his nose against hers. He was still shaking.
He had never imagined emotions like this, drives and needs like this. She had been inside of him, and he inside of her.
What had she done to him?
Her body began to relax beneath his, and she turned her head to one side.
“I knew as soon as I saw you,” she said.
Years passed.
Jessenia taught Robert to develop and focus his telepathy. He learned to seduce with his gift. He learned how to hunt safely, and he learned why this was so essential: to protect the secrecy of his own kind.
He learned the laws as Jessenia taught him.
The first law was the most important. Never kill to feed. So she’d taught him this one immediately.
The second law prohibited any of their kind from making more than one other vampire in the span of one hundred years. Apparently, the physical and mental energy it required was so great that making another one before one hundred years passed could produce weak or flawed results.
The third law prohibited any of their kind from making a vampire without the express consent of the mortal. Turning a mortal against his or her will was a sin.
Fourth, the maker was required to teach the new vampire all methods of proper survival—again to protect the secrecy of the others.
“What happens if someone breaks one of the laws?” he asked one night.
She looked surprised. “None of us would break them.” She paused. “The maker takes immense responsibility in turning a mortal, so we consider our choices carefully, as they will be long-term companions. I know vampires who are natural teachers who have turned mortals out of a need for a student. I have seen some who sought a mother or a father figure.”
“What did you seek?”
“I sought you.” She grabbed his hand. “I looked so long for you.”
It troubled him at first that she would never answer certain questions. Where had she come from? Who was her maker? He did learn that she was right around one hundred years old, but where had she been for the past hundred years, and who had she been before that?
She told him not to ask.
Over the years, he did come to understand that her love of traveling was an overwhelming drive, and yet she had learned to fear doing so alone. She told him she’d been searching for a companion who was a soldier, but not a common soldier. She sought one who saw the importance of rules and laws and order and yet at the same time was capable of feeling pity, of feeling love. Most of all, one whose gift would be seduction through the promise of protection . . . and one would who protect her.
“Connections like ours are rare,” she said. “Your gift and mine create fire when we join them.”
And they joined frequently. He could never get enough of the feel of her body in his hands or of tangling his gift with hers until they both shuddered with waves of pleasure and exhaustion.
“But you have no obligation to me,” she said. “After training is complete, there are no laws to tie the new ones to their makers.”
He grasped the back of her hair. “Why would I ever leave you?”
She smiled.
Each night was as full and interesting as the last. He found out quickly that Jessenia enjoyed the company of most mortals, and she was often involved in intrigues similar to that of the night he’d met her. He shook his head in wonder when she told him more details of how she’d seen the two assassins in a tavern, and she’d seen Lady Elizabeth’s face. Afterward, she made friends with the men easily, and then