the next night, Angelo left them to head back for France.
Three hundred years slipped by, and Robert found some pleasure, some wonder, in every single night. He and Jessenia traveled through Portugal and then Greece. They spent years in Austria and then Poland, and later found delight in Prague. They explored forests and beaches and mountains. Sometimes they found inns—or even rented rooms—for a longer stay. Sometimes they slept in abandoned hovels. Sometimes Robert camouflaged a black canvas tent in the forest, and he made them their own shelter for the day. Jessenia never questioned his decisions or his abilities, and he never once failed her.
The best thing about traveling in this slow, exploratory fashion was that after a hundred years, they simply went back to England and started all over again . . . and everything was different.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, they heard that Angelo had finally created a surrogate son for himself, a Scot named John McCrugger. Robert was glad to hear the news. Now Angelo would not be so lonely.
But he did not think long on this, as he was too lost in the bliss of his own constant companion, his lively sprite, Jessenia.
He believed their love and their journeys would go on forever.
Then, in 1820, everything began to change.
They had just crossed the border from Switzerland into northern Italy, and Jessenia stopped at one of her message outposts to see if she had any letters waiting. She did.
“Oh, look,” Jessenia said with a smile. “It’s from Demetrio. Let’s find an inn, and I’ll read you the news.”
A half hour later, they were sitting at a table, making plans whether to take rooms or travel on the next night, when Jessenia opened the letter, and her expression changed. Her smile faded and her mouth began to tremble.
“What is it?” Robert asked in alarm. He had never seen her like this.
Her hand was shaking as she held on to the letter.
“Jessenia! What’s wrong?”
“Angelo . . .” She was trying to speak and kept failing. Robert could not read Italian, so he waited.
“Angelo has broken the laws . . . several of them,” she managed to say. “He made a second son, a Welsh noble, two years ago, and then a third one, French, only a year after. Demetrio says the Welsh one has no telepathic ability at all, and the French one is feral and cannot be trained.”
Robert fell back in his chair. “That cannot be right. Is this something Demetrio heard or saw? I cannot think . . . Angelo would never . . .”
Three new vampires in the span of eighteen years?
“We have to go to Harfleur,” Jessenia said. “We should leave tonight.”
This was a journey without joy. Robert kept turning the possibilities over and over in his mind, but he could not think of how these last two vampires could feed without killing. Why would Angelo, the oldest among them, break laws set up for the protection of them all?
No, it had to be a mistake. Something had been mistranslated.
They arrived in Harfleur.
It was no mistake, and the scene Robert found was worse than he imagined.
He walked inside the stone manor and saw something moving stealthily up ahead. A figure emerged into the entryway, and Robert actually took a step back, holding his arm out to guard Jessenia.
The creature moving toward him barely seemed human. It was a man with long red-brown hair who might have once been handsome but who now wore the expression of a mindless animal. His feet were bare and he wore no shirt, with blood smeared across his face and chest. He snarled savagely.
“Philip! Get back!”
Angelo strode quickly up behind this creature and took his arm. The creature calmed somewhat, but Angelo did not look happy at the sight of guests.
“Robert, I was not expecting you.”
Robert just stood there with no idea what to say. He couldn’t believe the sight before them, and he continued holding Jessenia back.
“Forgive me,” Angelo said. “This is Philip Branté. Excuse his state of undress. He just came in and I must have his shirt laundered.”
Judging by the blood smeared all over the creature’s face, Robert could only imagine what his shirt must look like. And this pretense at a polite introduction was insulting.
“Send him away,” Robert choked. “We would speak to you alone.”
Angelo looked at him through cold eyes for a long moment and then turned to the creature. “Philip, my boy, you stay here. I need to speak with our