Taken by a Vampire (Vampire Queen) - By Joey W. Hill Page 0,176

two men. Slipping under the oak’s canopy, she dropped to her knees between Evan’s feet.

“Mother hens, the both of you,” he said, but his lips curved. He bade her stay, so she shifted at his direction, resting her head on his knee, her body pressed against his calf as he idly stroked her hair, sipped the blood.

“Niall said it was necessary. He didn’t want you trying to eat the guests. Tyler won’t invite you back, and Niall likes the food here.”

“It would be a braver man than myself that stood between Niall and a feast.” Evan brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “You’re learning to tease and be teased.”

She nodded, returned her head to his knee. She fingered the hand he had dangling loosely over it, touching the pewter ring on his middle finger. Time heals all things. “Was this a gift?”

“Yes, from Niall. He gave it to me the year I turned three hundred, on Yom Kippur. Day of Atonement.” Evan studied the ring. “It’s a solemn day, a fast from sunset to sunset, during which a Jew reviews the past year and seeks atonement for his sins against God. He’s also supposed to make amends for any sins against others before the day itself.” He looked up at her. “Niall says I get gloomy as a cloud on Yom Kippur. He gave me the ring because he thought a shiny bauble might perk me up, like it would a lass.”

She smiled. “He likes teasing you. But I expect you teased him back.”

“Several times, the next night. It would have been forbidden on that day.” The heat that went through his gaze told her exactly what he meant. “With his bad influence, he’ll teach you the way of it in no time.”

“I like teasing you,” she admitted. “As long as I don’t offend or anger you. You seem to enjoy it when Niall does it.”

“Yet you’re developing your own inimitable style.”

That made her glow a little, especially when his eyes warmed on her. “May I ask . . . What about Yom Kippur makes you sad?”

“After Yom Kippur, you start the new year with a clean slate. But after so many years, you learn there really is no such thing as a clean slate.” He lifted a shoulder, giving her a wry smile. “I’m a blood drinker and a sodomite. Rather hypocritical to atone for something I won’t stop doing. But by its very nature, Yom Kippur is a day of remembrance. After hundreds of years, so many things are forgotten or devalued. So many moments can be like water drops, slipping away from you as the years progress. But I remember my parents vividly, as well as the lives I’ve taken for my annual kill. I’ve made amends for those in the ways that are possible, and I always say prayers for them.

“As far as my parents . . . I was dying when Uthe came to me. There was no way to make them understand the decision I made or reconcile it. I wanted a chance to live . . . to experience life without illness, to pursue this burning drive I had inside me to create, to . . . illuminate. It felt like a mistake, like I was meant to live, and fate had sent me this chance.” He shook his head. “The delusions of ego, but the decision was made. I left in the middle of the night, leaving nothing behind but a note saying that I wished to spare them the pain of my death and would see as much of the world as I could before God claimed me. Honest, in part. But now that I’ve left behind a young man’s self-absorbed view of life, I know that decision caused my mother unimaginable pain. Not just going away from her, but the idea that my body might not have been cared for properly in death, according to our ways.”

She considered that. Despite her mother’s aloofness, once she left home, Alanna still cried herself to sleep for quite some time, knowing she’d never see her again. That first year, the feelings had sometimes been unbearable. To be bonded to someone for three hundred years, sharing emotions, intimacy, everything . . . When Niall was gone, only Evan would hold those memories. It sounded very lonely.

“How will you bear it?”

“The same way we bear anything in life. One moment at a time.”

When she woke, she knew it was daylight, because she was in pitch-black