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“You know, a woman waits her whole life to hear those words.” I sighed. I straightened, lifting my head. I looked up into his face and caught a flicker of uncertainty. “What? What’s with the face?”
“Well, I can believe Jeanine sent you letters,” he said. “And maybe even rubbing your house with exotic, unpleasant fruit. But the silver, that seems rather aggressive for her. She’s absolutely phobic of any sort of silver, claims she’s more sensitive to it than most vampires because of her delicate constitution. For her to send it to you, she must be getting desperate.”
“Either that, or I have another stalker,” I wisecracked. “Oh, crap. You said you’ve turned three people including me. Who was the third?” I poked him when he didn’t respond. “Total honesty.”
“It’s a much shorter story. I met Brandley in the 1950s in London. He was a young medical student, brilliant. He spent most of his time in a lab, studying vaccines. From the moment I met him, I could tell that he was very ill. There was a taint to his scent, an undercurrent of decay. Leukemia. But when I thought of what he could accomplish, how he could benefit mankind when he had unlimited time to conduct his research, I gave him a choice: impending natural death or everlasting life. He took it. I was so careful turning him, staying with him until he rose, coaching him through those first few days. And at first, it was wonderful to have a companion, someone to hunt with, to talk to. Like yours, Brandley’s learning curve was quite steep. He adjusted beautifully to his new life. But unlike you, Brandley had an enormous aptitude for cruelty. He had no interest in study or science when he could spend his nights drowning in the blood of his victims. I tried to teach him patience, pity for his food, but for him, the meal seemed incomplete if they survived.”
I chewed my lip. “Should we worry about Brandley coming after us, because I don’t want to go through this whole bratty demon stepchilde thing again.”
“Brandley’s dead. He was killed by an angry Welsh mob who objected to his tendency of feeding off their very young daughters.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” I asked.
“Well, they cut his head off, so, yes.”
I was quiet for a long moment. “You have really, really bad luck when it comes to vampire children, don’t you? I mean, how could you have worked up the nerve to turn me? Because it could have gone just horribly, horribly wrong.”
“Who’s to say it hasn’t?” Gabriel muttered. “And stop using adverbs twice, it’s insulting.”
“Seriously, why would you put yourself through that when you’d had such terrible experiences as a sire?”
He kissed me, pressing his lips ever so softly against mine. “Because you were different. When I told you that your goodness and your innocence set you apart, I meant it. I’d had reservations when I turned Jeanine and some reluctance about turning Brandley. But when I saw you, bleeding and dying, I knew without a doubt that you deserved a second chance, that you would make the most of your vampire life, without cruelty, without being petty or selfish. You’re the best part of me, Jane, the gift I could give the world to make up for past wrongs.”
“That’s either incredibly beautiful or a lot of pressure to put on me.”
Gabriel snorted. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Idiot.”
“Agreed.” He sighed. “I’ve never had a lover I’ve met as a human and known as a vampire. I’ve never made love to someone I sired. I didn’t count on my feelings of love and concern and responsibility twisting into such a confusing mess.”
“So, I’m your first?”
He seemed startled by the question. “Yes! The last thing on my mind was sex with Jeanine, and, well, Brandley was a man.”
“So, you’ve never …”
“No!”
I threw up my hands. “Hey, vampires are hypersexual creatures. Our boundaries are not like those of humans. And then, of course, there’s all that tension between you and Dick. You can’t really blame me for thinking—”
“Jane!”
I shrugged. “OK. You’re totally heterosexual.”
“You’re enjoying my discomfort right now, aren’t you?” he growled.
“Immensely,” I told him, snickering as I bit down on his bottom lip. “This is my proposal, simple and to the point: we track this Jeanine twit down and kick her ass.”
Gabriel sighed again, burying his face in my hair. “That’s my girl.”
I would have gotten into a long-term relationship years ago if someone had told me about the almighty power of makeup sex.
We talked long into the night about our months apart. We seemed to see it as a competition, who missed whom more. I described my bathrobe-encased moping. He countered with the fact that he let Zeb take him to karaoke night at the Cellar to sing sad break-up songs, including “There’s a Tear in My Beer.” I told him about my evening of drinking with Dick, carefully omitting the bar fight, for Dick’s sake. Gabriel confessed to keeping one of my T-shirts in bed with him so he could smell me while he slept.
“You are now officially a sixteen-year-old girl.” I giggled, stroking his back. “Wait a minute, what did you do with the panties you stole in the alley?”
“It’s best we don’t discuss that,” he said, nuzzling my collarbone. “We’ve already established that I missed you more than you missed me. Let’s leave it at that. I am the truly pathetic winner.”
