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Adorablewas not typically in his vernacular.

“But you do kill people?”

So they were back to that.

He sighed. “If necessary. There’s a group of Cheld called the Sect who are . . . let’s call them extremists. The only vampires they like are dead ones.”

“But you protect the Cheld—”

“Doesn’t matter. Like I said”—he shrugged—“they’re extreme”

He hadn’t planned to divulge a story few outside his family knew about, but he also did not want Charlotte to have any delusions about him.

“The Sect. One of their very first kills was my fault.”

He forged ahead, the memories as clear as if they’d not happened hundreds of years earlier.

“I turned a woman, quite by accident. We hadn’t learned to feed properly yet.”

Shoving away the image in his mind, he continued.

“With Lady Isobel’s help, the young handmaiden lived. But unlike my siblings and I, for some unknown reason, she was less cautious. Her victims, numerous. It was my young nephew, no more than nineteen, who finally stopped her. Permanently. The beginnings of the Cheld. And of the belief, by some, that no vampire could live peaceably among men. Later, when we’d all learned to control our urges and feed properly, after the damage had been done, I made it my personal duty to hunt down each and every ancestor of my brother’s. To protect them, yes, but also to ensure they knew we were inherently good, despite the actions of a few of our kind.”

He hated everything about that story, but there it was. The worst of him and what he’d done to help create the Sect.

“Other questions?”

Charlotte didn’t answer. But neither did she look at him with the contempt he’d have expected. She stood again, her footing surer than it had been earlier, and gripped the railing. For a long moment, she just stood there looking down on the town. Lights peeked out from the tree line in front of them.

He knew what was going through her head. She needed time to adjust to a new reality.

Charlotte peered at him over her shoulder. Something flashed through her eyes before she regained control of her expression.

He closed the distance between them, not hiding his ability to move more quickly than should be normal.

“You are not dangerous to me,” she said.

“Never.”

“But you could be, against a member of the Sect?”

“Or another vampire who thinks killing a Derrickson could earn them a fair amount of notoriety.”

“So there are other vampires, then?”

“Many others, although none know the exact number. They live among humans, undetected, until it becomes necessary for them to move on.”

“But you could be killed?”

“Highly unlikely.”

Her mouth opened ever so slightly. This time, he would not ignore the invitation, whether it was intentional or not. Without breaking eye contact, he stated the facts. “As one of the oldest, I am faster, stronger, and more knowledgeable than most others.”

“Except for the Morleys.”

She laughed at the sound he made deep in his throat.

“It’s almost a comfort to hear you sound like yourself again.”