“He told me about that,” Saintcrow said. “I’m sure it caused you a great deal of unease.”
“That’s putting it mildly. Go on.”
“We can change shape and turn into mist; that is true. There are only a few ways to kill a vampire. None of them are pleasant. There are vampires who are truly monsters, who thrive on killing and destruction. There are vampires like my wife, who lack the innate instinct to hunt or to kill. And there is Conor, sired by an ancient vampire, which lessens his violent tendencies to a great extent.”
Bryn stared at him, her mind reeling.
“It is a lot to take in,” Saintcrow remarked. “There is one more thing. Vampires don’t age.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Conor will always look as he is now, a young man in the prime of life.”
She sat back, shoulders slumped. When Conor was eighty, he would still look twenty-five. She didn’t even want to think about how she would look.
“There are two ways around it,” Saintcrow said quietly. “If you drink a little of his blood from time to time, it will greatly slow the aging process, or–”
She held up her hand, certain she knew what he was about to say. “It’s out of the question.”
“It isn’t a bad life,” Saintcrow said. “Being a vampire is as good or as bad as you make it, just like mortality.”
“How....how old are you?”
“Roughly, a thousand years.”
She blinked at him. One.Thousand.Years. She couldn’t comprehend such a thing. She might live to be eighty, maybe ninety, a few people lived to be a hundred or more, but a thousand? It was inconceivable.
“Think about it carefully. I know many women who have let their men turn them. To my knowledge, all of them would do it again.” He smiled at her. “My wife, Kadie, is one of them.” He stood in a single, fluid motion. “It was nice meeting you, Miss Davis. I hope you and Conor can work things out.”
Bryn remained seated, afraid her legs wouldn’t support her if she tried to stand. “It was...ah...nice meeting you, too,” she said. “A little scary, but nice.”
With a nod, Saintcrow moved toward the door. “I think Conor could make you happy for a lifetime – or longer – if you give him the chance,” he said, before he left her apartment.
“Happy, or a vampire?” Bryn muttered. “Is it possible to be both?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The minute Conor entered Bryn’s apartment Saturday night, he knew his father had been there. What the hell?
Bryn looked up at him, confused by the anger she read in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“What was Saintcrow doing here?”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know? Did he tell you?”
“I can smell him. What was he doing here?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I...I called him.”
“Why the hell would you do that?”
She licked her lips, wondering what to say when he was so angry.
“Dammit, Bryn, tell me.”
“I spent the day researching vampires online.” She sat on the sofa, arms crossed. “Since I couldn’t believe everything I read, I–”
He glared at her. “You called my father to ask him if it was true. Why the hell didn’t you call me?”
