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I opened my mouth to argue that I wasn’t planning on running away, but she gave me a pointed look, proving she’d already guessed what I wanted to do.
“They’d find you anyway.” Her eyes fell to the necklace. “You can only run so far.”
“Anywhere is better than here,” I grumbled.
“Now, that’s not true.” She got off the bed and strode to the small kitchenette in the back corner. “I know of much worse places you could be trapped in than here. Amaros’s property, for one. And if you make trouble, and Zan’s father finds out about it, that’s where you’ll end up.”
A chill ran through me. “How do you know Amaros so well?”
She faltered for a moment when opening a cabinet. “He turned me. I spent the first twenty years as a vampire at his side.”
Her words were robotic with no emotion in them, and I was smart enough to know that this wasn’t a subject she wanted to talk about. So I asked a different question instead.
“Since I already know all the other secrets, you might as well tell me how humans are turned into vampires.”
She laughed. “Nice try, Kali. Ask me something else that I can answer.”
Her statement had me going still as I stared at her. Zan refused to tell me any secrets about his father. Would Gia? She opened what appeared to be some sort of cooler and pulled out a blood bag. Shock ripped through me as I watched her tear the top off and start drinking it. I knew that PARA gave donated blood to vampires, but how did it get to this city when they didn’t even know there were vampires here?
“I have to take you back soon, so if you want to ask something, better do it now,” she said, her cheery demeanor back in place.
“If Amaros wants more Shadows with his blood,” I said slowly, “then why doesn’t he have more children instead of making Zan do it?”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “Balance of nature.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that vampires who mate can only do it so many times.” She crossed the room, holding her closed hand out toward me. “Three times, to be exact.”
“Three,” I echoed, the new information processing. “Why did Amaros wait this long to mate?”
“He mated decades before he had the twins.”
She didn’t exactly answer my question, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t. No point in pressing the matter when I could ask other things.
I frowned. “Do they choose when they mate?”
“No. Again, that’s nature’s decision.” She drank from the blood bag again. “Male vampires go into what can be best explained as something along the lines of going into heat. They can feel when they’re ready to mate. The window is small. It lasts maybe a week each time. And it only happens once every few years.”
My mind was racing. This was all news to me. We knew only certain vampires could mate. But the fact that they didn’t choose when to mate was something humans didn’t know. Did PARA know?
“Did Amaros mention anything about…” She hesitated for a moment, her unsure look making my stomach knot. “The women vampires mate with?”
“Not really,” I muttered, thinking about what Amaros had told me. “Only that he thought I was strong enough to survive pregnancy.”
She nodded. “Even though Shadows don’t come into their abilities until they turn twenty-five, the pregnancy of their mothers is difficult. Hard enough that more than half don’t live through labor. Sometimes they can’t even carry the pregnancy.”
Fear slid through me. “Why?”
“Maybe it’s their black blood. Their power.” She shrugged. “I don’t exactly know. But I do know that Amaros is very particular about the women chosen for vampires. They need to be strong. If they can’t hold the pregnancy, then they are of no use to him, and it’s a waste of a vampire’s mating time.”
“He’s making an army, isn’t he?” I asked quietly. “Of Shadows. The war really isn’t over. He’s just been biding his time.”
Her lips curled up in a small smile. “Very good. I knew you were smart.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered, panic making my chest tight.
“Because I want you to have all the facts,” she said firmly. “I’m not trying to scare you. But you aren’t leaving this life anymore, Kali. Not now that Amaros knows about you.”
