The man who seemed so cold and yet kissed her with such passion?
She closed her eyes and forced herself to think with her brain instead of her hormones.
When Beatrice had gone through her darkest teenage years, she had turned to almost anyone who seemed to offer a little warmth. Now, she shuddered to think how foolish she had been and how self-destructive. She had forced herself to take a break from the opposite sex since she decided that dark and destructive weren’t nearly as attractive as she had thought they were at seventeen.
But she didn’t like being alone, and she had the same desires that most twenty-two-year-old women had. A part of her thrilled at the idea of her interest in Giovanni being returned, but the other part of her had the cold realization that a relationship with a five hundred-year-old vampire, who probably wanted to drink her blood more than he wanted to cuddle, was the textbook definition of unhealthy.
On second thought, she was pretty sure most textbooks didn’t cover that one.
She heard the door to the reading room open, tucked the notes in her bag, and braced herself before she looked up.
And Carwyn stood in front of her.
“Surprise!”
She glanced at the smiling vampire before her eyes darted to the doors he had just walked through.
“Oh, Count Stuffy della Prissypants is not with me. He had to venture to the fair city of New York to negotiate purchase on a certain prize his awesome assistant found.” Carwyn clucked his tongue at her and winked. “And you didn’t even tell me. I would have taken you to a horror movie, a really bad one.”
She mustered up a smile. “It's good to see you. I wasn’t expecting—”
“No, I expect you weren’t from the sad, little look on your face. But cheer up!” He pulled a chair over and sat next to the desk. “I’m all yours for the night. And I won’t even pretend to transcribe an old book so I can stare at you longingly from the corner of my eye.” He kicked his feet up on the desk. “Thank God none of the boring professors are here.”
“Carwyn,” she said with a smile. “Have I told you lately that you’re kind of awesome?”
He winked. “No, but I’m always game to hear it. Forget the Italian, darling Beatrice. Run away with me. We’ll go to Hawaii.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’ll make us a cave by the sea where the sun won’t touch me and we’ll spend every night swimming naked and drinking fruity drinks while we make the fishes blush.”
She giggled and shook her head at his mischievous grin. “You…are something else.”
His grin suddenly turned sweet as he looked at her.
“As are you, darling girl. As are you.”
He opened his mouth again, as if to say something, and she felt a faint stirring in the air, but finally, his grin returned and the tension seemed to scatter.
“Could you really make a cave?”
“What?” He looked surprised by her question. “Oh, yes. Of course. Volcanic rock is very soft.”
She shook her head. “That’s so crazy. I wish Gio would tell me about that stuff.”
“Well, what do you want to know? No one here but vampires and crazy people.”
She snorted. “Well,” she thought, “what can all the different vampires do? There’s four kinds, right? Like the four elements? You can make caves, Gio can make fire—”
“Well, strictly speaking—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she waved a hand, “static electricity, manipulation of the elements, got that part. So, it’s probably the same with all of them then.” She frowned. “How do you know what element you’ll be? Do you get to pick? Is it something that happens right away when you get…”
“Sired? Or turned. Those are the proper terms in our world.” Carwyn sighed and leaned back in his chair. “With my children—”
“Your children?”
“Yes, I call them sons and daughters. It depends on the sire, but immortal families can be very much like human families. We just tend to look a bit closer in age,” he said with a laugh.
“How do you—I mean how do you become…” She paused, unsure of how to phrase her question.
“Most of the common myths are true about that,” Carwyn said. “When I sire a child, almost all of their blood is drained, either by me or someone else. The important thing is that the majority of the blood is replaced with my own. That is what creates the connection.”
“And what is the connection? Do you…control them or something?”
“Sadly, no,” he laughed. “I can’t compel them to do my bidding.” Carwyn paused for a moment and a wistful look came to his eyes.
“It’s very much the way I remember feeling about my human children, to be honest. Only much more…intense, as everything is. It’s not an easy decision, choosing to make a child, and it has such long-term consequences. If nothing violent happens to myself or my children, we will be a family for eternity. It’s a very strong commitment to make to another being and, as a consequence, I do have quite a lot of influence over my children. We’re very close.”