Page 101 of Hoofin’ It

“But why are the vampires giving it to us?”

“What’s the average lifespan of a shifter?”

“No one told you?”

“No. To be fair, I didn’t ask.”

“Longer than lycanthropes. We aren’t reliant on the virus to stay alive. We’re a lot less common than lycanthropes, but we can live longer. If their virus dies, they die. But they have advantages we lack.”

Relief I wouldn’t die of old age long before my parents washed through me. I needed to do a lot of research, but I could work with what I’d learned. “Like enhanced regeneration?”

“Right. We heal faster than regular humans, and we have a much higher ability to withstand lethal damage, but we’ll never match a lycanthrope’s regenerative ability.”

“And the lycanthrope virus in other shifters? That doesn’t help their regeneration?”

“No. If I’m exposed to lycanthropy, I get a fever for a few days. I suppose it might help a little, but I’ve never tried it. I’ve only had accidental exposure.”

I wasn’t sure what I thought about that, and to cover my uncertainty, I took another sip of wine. “Ernesto knows I’m an unidentified shifter by now, and once he knew, he would’ve told his children. To them, humans live such short lives, like brightly burning flames that wink out too quickly. As soon as they begin to truly witness the complexity of a human, the human dies. He probably knows a lot more about shifters than I do, so he’d know my lifespan—barring death from unnatural causes—has been greatly lengthened.”

“So he’s celebrating that you’ll be around a lot longer to bother him?”

“That would be my first guess.”

“But it’s Pierina’s wine.”

“She’s cut from the same cloth as her father, and she loves feeding her favorite people.”

“The Italian food he brought over. It’s from here, isn’t it?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Pierina loves cooking. She can’t eat much beyond a taste, but little makes her happier than feeding living things.”

“That seems so weird. She’s undead.”

“I’m no expert on vampires, but I’ve come to the conclusion they value life even more after undeath, because they can no longer experience it in the same way.” I took another sip of my wine.

“If he likes you so much, why doesn’t he just turn you?”

“Because he likes me—that’s why. If he hated me, he’d turn me and get his revenge by making me into the type of person he wanted. But death is a part of undeath, and when someone is turned, everything that person used to be dies with them. Vampires become new people. Who they used to be is truly gone.”

“You’ve known someone who became a vampire, haven’t you?”

I shrugged. “Hard not to around here. Chicago has a high population of vamps and demons.”

“Yet they can’t stand werewolves.”

“I never said it made sense.”

“That’s true.” Marian drank her wine, her gaze focusing on the canal behind me. “Whenever I start thinking I have you figured out, you surprise me.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Well, I won’t get bored.” She grinned and turned her attention back to me.

“Good.”

Pierina must have believed Marian and I were at risk of starvation, because she served us a sampling of everything on her menu. The vampire retained some of her common sense, limiting the serving sizes to something in the realm of sane—if we were lycanthropes fresh off a rampage and in dire need of sustenance.

We weren’t, but I couldn’t resist the challenge, and neither could Marian. While I’d warned her about the vampire’s tendency to use every bit of an animal to enter her kitchen, I doubted Marian believed me until the heart arrived. At least Pierina had cooked it, which was better than the first time I’d sampled one of her more unique dishes.