he’d spent his time doing, saving dying children was not one of them. Not even close. She found herself starting to see him as angelic again.
“You’re just like a vampire,” Lucy whispered.
“Only instead of taking life, you’re giving it.”
He smiled softly. “Vampires don’t take lives, Lucy. Not anymore. Not unless it’s a life sorely in need of taking.”
She thought about that, fascinated. “But…they need blood. I mean, do most of them really subsist by robbing blood banks?”
“Not entirely. But they don’t need to kill in order to feed. They can drink from the living without taking enough to do harm and even remove any memory of the experience. It can be…quite pleasurable, actually.”
“Do you…?”
“No.” He looked away. “Yes.”
Lifting her brows, Lucy said, “Which is it?”
“I…I can extend my incisors—vamp up, as Brigit calls it. I can pierce a jugular, imbibe human blood. But I’ve only tasted it once, and not from the living. And it wasn’t my choice—I was a child.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Was it…horrible?”
“It was…wonderful.”
Her face went lax, brows rising, stomach clenching. And yet, even while being repulsed, she found herself wondering why he was being so honest with her, so open. He had to know it would disgust her to think of him feeding on blood.
“But I’m not a blood drinker,” he said quickly.
“I don’t need to be, so I’ve chosen not to be. I eat normal food, drink normal beverages and keep my fangs firmly retracted.” He smiled to show her.
For one brief moment she got lost in that smile, in those eyes, in the man who was…once again convincing her that he was some sort of a hero. Her kidnapper. Damn, what was wrong with her?
“And what about Brigit?” she asked, to change both the subject and the line of her thoughts.
He averted his eyes again. “I believe she imbibes on a regular basis. It increases any vampire’s strength, their power. She thrives on it.”
“What sorts of powers does your sister have?” Lucy asked.
He shook his head. “That’s for her to tell you, should she choose to.”
She couldn’t help but want to continue the discussion, her curiosity more powerful than her fear. “So vampires, and half vampires, can drink and make the victim forget?”
“Three-quarters, not half. And yes,” he said.
“And what about the…the marks?” She touched her own neck as she asked.
His eyes followed the motion of her hand and then lingered there on her throat. It seemed to Lucy that his gaze heated while it rested there. “The punctures heal at the first touch of sunlight. So the mortals rarely even see even a hint of a mark.”
She was quiet, contemplating.
“It’s a lot to absorb, isn’t it?”
“It’s an entire world I never even knew existed.”
“Most people don’t know. At least—they didn’t. Until now.”
She lowered her eyes. “Can I ask about the clichés without offending you?”
“Of course.”
“Is it true about the garlic and the crucifixes?”
“No. And no.”
“And the holy water? It doesn’t burn?”
“No.”
“And what about you and Brigit? Are you really…immortal?”
“We don’t know.”
She frowned, puzzled. “You don’t know?”
“How can we? There have never been children born to vampires before—until our mother. She stopped aging, as near as anyone’s been able to figure out, the first time the DPI killed her.”
She blinked in shock. “The…the government…killed your mother?”
“My mother was their most sought-after captive for a time. Half vampire, half human, bred in a DPI experiment just to see if it could be done. Vampires are supposed to be sterile, you know. Turns out the males are. In females, though, it takes a few months for all the viable eggs to leave their ovaries. They fertilized one in a female prisoner right after she was turned, using semen from…from a mortal who hadn’t yet been turned. Then they implanted the fertilized ovum and held the female captive until she gave birth. That baby was my mother.”
“And the parents were…your grandparents?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to them?”
“They escaped, along with their child. Jameson and Angelica—they’re still alive today, still look as young as they did then and they’re still together and deeply in love.”
“And your mother?”
“The DPI found her again as a young woman, captured her, then experimented on her, killing her in various ways to see if she was immortal or not. Reviving her and killing her again. Over and over, until her family managed to rescue her. She, too, is still alive, as is my father.”
“Good God,” she whispered. “And she conceived—why? How?”
“There seemed to be some healing properties in her blood, that restored my father’s seed.” He