The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,113

happen, Susan. You must know that. I wanted to spend my life with Jenny. She was my life mate. I'd sooner kill myself than my life mate."

"She wasn't your life mate," Susan snapped with disgust. "Jenny didn't even like you. She only put up with you so you'd turn her. She bought into all your promises of young and beau ful and healthy forever . . . but you killed her."

Harper winced as those words whipped him. He didn't know which hurt him most: the sugges on that Jenny had only been using him or the reminder that she was dead because of him. Susan's saying that she hadn't even liked him fit with what Teddy had said the night he and Drina had flown back from Toronto in the helicopter, and he supposed it was possible. They'd only known each other a week or so before she'd agreed to the turn. And while he was immortal and had accepted her as his life mate the moment he couldn't read her, she was mortal. Mortals didn't understand the importance of being a life mate, didn't automa cally recognize the gi of it. She may have just gone along with it to let him turn her. But he was sure that she would have eventually recognized that he was the only one she could find peace with and passion.

Harper frowned as he recalled that he hadn't experienced that passion with Jenny. He'd been pu ng it down to the fact that she'd kept him at arm's length, and s ll believed that. If she'd even allowed him to kiss her, they both would have been overwhelmed by it, he was sure. Just as he and Drina were constantly bedeviled by it.

Finally, he said solemnly, "She was my life mate, Susan. I couldn't read her."

Susan snorted. "Jenny figured that was the brain tumor."

Harper s lled, his heart seeming to stop in his chest at the words. It was Drina who growled, "Brain tumor?"

Eyes locked on Harper, Susan flashed an unpleasant smile that suggested she was enjoying his shock and dismay. "She was having headaches, and her vision would blur at mes. She was also having trouble concentra ng, and her memory was suffering. It turned out she had a tumor. They'd started chemo to try to shrink it before they operated, but then Jenny met you and decided she didn't need any more treatment at all. She'd just let you turn her and live forever."

"Harper?" Drina said quietly. "A brain tumor could prevent you reading her."

"She was my life mate, Dree," he said quietly. "I was eating. My appetites had been reawakened."

"We can always eat," she pointed out gently. "We just get red of it and stop because it's a bother, not because we can't." She paused a moment to let that sink in, then asked, "Did the food taste as good then as it does now?"

Harper automa cally opened his mouth to say yes, but caught himself and really thought about it. In truth, he realized, it hadn't. It had been okay, some of it tasty even, but he'd only eaten when the others had, and hadn't found himself stuffing himself un l his stomach ached, or constantly wan ng it as he did now.

"And you didn't have the shared dreams," she pointed out quietly.

Harper nodded silently, thinking that it wasn't just the lack of shared dreams but the lack of passion. He'd been eager to experience it with Jenny, but not eager enough to try to change her mind when she'd insisted they wait un l a er the turn. Harper had just let it go, thinking everything would be fine a er he turned her. He certainly hadn't been obsessed with it as he had been since Drina had arrived here in Port Henry, his mind constantly undressing her and doing things to her that le him half-erect when she wasn't even in the damned room.

By the me Harper had actually kissed Drina outside that restaurant in Toronto, he'd already undressed and made love to her in his mind a hundred mes. During their shopping expedi on, he'd fantasized about her in every pair of pretty panties and bras she'd bought, and the black dress had been no better. Harper had assured himself that it was just the appe tes Jenny had reawakened, that they were making themselves known again now that some of his depression was easing, but those damned boots had kept him under a cold shower