by Lynsay Sands
G.G. frowned. “Your abuela?”
Ildaria turned away to set down the now empty shell and pick up another egg before admitting, “I never saw her again.”
“What?” There was such horror in his voice that she winced. It was the same horror she felt when she thought of it. Her abuela had been everything to her. She had given her a home and unconditional love. Her abuela had supported and fought for her. She’d deserved better.
Sighing, Ildaria cracked and added three more eggs to the batter, then gathered all four of the broken shells and tossed them in the garbage under the sink. She then washed her hands quickly, before grabbing a large spoon to stir the batter and said, “I wanted to go directly to her, tell her what I had remembered, and ask what to do. But I needed to feed.”
She glanced over to see G.G. nod, but knew he didn’t really understand. She needed to explain. Picking the bowl up off the counter, she cradled it in one arm and turned to lean against the counter so that she could watch him as she stirred the batter and spoke. “The start of the turn, what you saw when your mother was turned,” she added, pinning him with her gaze and noting the way his expression tightened before she continued, “I’m sure it’s painful, but all I remember of it is terrible nightmares. I gather that’s what most turns recall afterward, horrifying nightmares.”
He looked so startled by this news that a small smile tugged at her mouth.
“It’s true,” she assured him.
“Not my mother,” he said with certainty. “She was in agony.”
“Si. I’m sure I was too,” she told him. “But the mind . . .” She shrugged. “It doesn’t hold onto the memory of it. Perhaps it is the nanos, or perhaps the brain just cannot process such sustained and powerful sensation and short-circuits. I do not know, but I do not really remember the pain. Just the nightmares, and I have been told it is the same for all turns.”
G.G. shook his head stubbornly, refusing to believe.
“Have you ever asked her?” Ildaria queried.
G.G. frowned now, but reluctantly shook his head.
“Perhaps you should,” she suggested gently. “Because from what I can tell, that part of the turn is harder on those overseeing it than the person turning.”
The stubbornness on his face told her that he wasn’t prepared to entertain this idea yet, so she let it go. The suggestion was in his mind now and he would wonder about it, and hopefully, someday ask his mother. It might not convince him to turn. His repulsion was ingrained from a young age, subconsciously affecting his decisions just as her abuse as a child had worked under the surface all these years to make her avoid sexual situations.
“At any rate,” she said, dropping her gaze to the batter as she returned to the subject, “the hell for me was once the worst of the turn was over and I’d regained consciousness. The hunger was constant. I didn’t recognize it as hunger though. To me it was just pain. Sometimes it was just a mild discomfort, what I experienced as a mortal when I was hungry. But sometimes it felt like my stomach was eating itself. If I didn’t feed then, it would spread out and change, feeling as if my blood had turned to acid and was boiling all my organs.
“Those first weeks I always woke up hungry, usually just with the mild discomfort type of hunger, but sometimes with the stomach gnawing kind. Fortunately, Señorita Ana was always there with a donor, waiting to help me feed. At least, for the first two weeks. But the third week, she started coming later and wasn’t there waiting. I had to remain in my room and suffer until she came. I was never to leave my room without her. I was actually breaking the rules by going to visit my abuela.”
“What?” he asked with surprise. “Why weren’t you allowed to leave your room?”
“For the safety of the mortal staff,” she said simply, and deciding the batter was stirred enough, set the bowl on the counter, turned the oven to bake at 400 degrees and then retrieved the muffin pan and muffin cups.
“She didn’t think it was safe for you to be around mortals?” G.G. asked as he watched her drop the paper muffin cups into the muffin pan one after another.
Ildaria shrugged. “I was a new turn. No new turn is safe for a mortal to be around.”
“Why?” he asked at once.
“We don’t always recognize the sign that we’re hungry as a need for blood,” she explained, moving on to dripping batter into the paper cups. “We automatically reach for food, because the first hunger pangs are similar to the hunger for food and we haven’t adjusted to our new needs and their signals. Even the sensation of the stomach eating itself is similar to that of the hunger for food when a mortal is really hungry. But the acid attacking your organs feeling isn’t. Unfortunately, by the time you get to that point, you can be extremely dangerous.”
Frowning, she added, “But you’re dangerous before that too. Your stomach might just be a little uncomfortable, you think you’re hungry, and then a mortal moves close and smells lovely. You might think, what a pretty perfume. I just have to get a better whiff, and move closer. Maybe you hug them and press your nose to their throat and . . . your lizard brain takes over. The next thing you know you’re licking the vein pulsing there, or biting into it.”
“Your lizard brain?” G.G. asked with disbelief as she set the batter aside and popped the muffin tin in the oven.
Straightening, Ildaria turned toward him and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what else to call it. You aren’t really thinking clearly at that point. Some basic survival part of your brain takes over and goes after what you need. You don’t realize what’s happening and that you’re biting someone until the screaming starts.”
“Screaming?” he asked with alarm. “I thought you could control mortals and ensure they don’t feel pain when you feed.”
“We can. If we’re in control. But a new turn has to be taught that control, and that was why Señorita Ana was making me wait longer before taking me to feed. She needed me to learn to control myself even when the hunger had reached the critical point.”
G.G. considered that briefly, and then nodded that he understood. But then he asked, “That last afternoon with your grandmother—abuela,” he corrected himself. “You weren’t hungry?”
“Si. I was, but not critically hungry yet so I was able to control myself. However, when I went to hug her goodbye it got iffy,” she conceded. “I found myself nuzzling her neck, and then realized what I was doing and ended the hug, told her I loved her and walked her out. Then I went in search of Señorita Ana. I was hoping she wouldn’t make me wait long to take me out to feed. Actually, I was surprised that she didn’t have someone keeping an eye on me. Or maybe she did,” she added thoughtfully. “There was security all over the place that day.”
“And yet they didn’t stop you from running,” he murmured thoughtfully.
Ildaria nodded slowly as she thought about that now too. “I didn’t see anyone in the hall when I walked out, and I was walking not running. They may have thought I was just . . .” She shrugged. “Going for a walk.”
“Until you ran,” G.G. said.
“Si.” Ildaria picked up her own water and took a long gulp, but it didn’t really quench her thirst any better than the hot chocolate had. Realization striking, she rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and moved to the refrigerator to retrieve a bag of blood.
G.G. smiled faintly as he watched her pop it to her fangs. He was used to immortals feeding in front of him. Clients might drink it from glasses at the Night Club, but his mother and father were both immortal and would drink from bags at home as she was doing, so she wasn’t surprised he seemed more amused than anything.
“All this talk of blood made you hungry, did it?” he teased.
Unable to talk with the bag at her mouth, Ildaria just shrugged. But the truth was she’d been so distracted with their talk that she’d made the rookie mistake of missing the signs that she needed blood. Seriously, how stupid was that? She could have accidentally bit G.G.
“So you didn’t go see your
abuela right away because you needed to feed,” G.G. said when the bag had emptied and she tore it from her fangs.
Nodding, Ildaria tossed the bag in the garbage and then leaned against the counter. “Unfortunately, when I ran from the plantation, I used immortal speed, which means using blood that was already low,” she explained. “By the time I stopped I was well into the stomach eating itself phase and verging on the acid in the organs stage.”
She grimaced at the memory. “That meant I couldn’t risk going anywhere there were a lot of people. The smell of their blood would have been overwhelming and I might have just attacked someone. I needed to find someone on their own. So, I went down to the waterside, hoping to find a fisherman on their own, or someone walking the beach in the moonlight. Tourism wasn’t a thing in the area back then,” she added. “This was 1826. We were under Haitian occupation, which had caused a lot of upheaval, but it was still safer to walk around at night than it would be now. Well, mostly,” she added to be honest, because the soldiers had been a problem. Haiti hadn’t been able to provision their soldiers properly, so the men were stealing the food and supplies they needed locally. They had called it commandeering or confiscating, but it was stealing.
Food and supplies weren’t all that the soldiers had taken without permission. A lot of half-Haitian babies had been born during that period. Though Ildaria had been relatively ignorant of all that at the time. She and her grandmother had been left alone. She supposed that had something to do with Señorita Ana. She had always protected her people.
Ildaria turned to glance at the stove’s clock and then opened the door to check the muffins. Deciding they needed another couple of minutes, she closed the door and continued. “I did eventually find someone on their own, but it took a while, and really I needed more blood than one donor could safely supply. Fortunately, that first man eased my need enough that I thought I could safely be around crowds again, so I decided to head back toward my abuela’s and look for someone to feed from on the way. Still, by the time I neared my abuela’s home, it was more than an hour since I’d left Señorita Ana’s.”
She paused briefly, as she remembered the moment her abuela’s home had come into view. “Juan and Ana were there. They were arguing in front of my abuela’s house. I couldn’t hear it all, but caught enough to gather that Señorita Ana wanted to question me. Juan wanted her to go home and leave me to him. I was his ‘problem now,’ he said.”
She grimaced. “Eventually, Señorita Ana was persuaded to leave and let him deal with me and Juan went into my abuela’s home.”
Ildaria bit her lip as she recalled her fear in that moment. She’d been terrified for her abuela, afraid Juan would take out his rage over her having unmanned him on the dear old woman. But he hadn’t stayed very long. “Juan was only inside for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. When he came out, my abuela accompanied him. They walked to his horse chatting like they were old friends. And she was smiling happily, as if he had gifted her with something wonderful. She was also promising Juan she would contact him the moment I returned home.”
“Mind control?” G.G. asked at once.
“I don’t know,” Ildaria breathed unhappily. “Maybe, or maybe he just lied and said he was concerned for my well-being and wished to help. She had no idea he was the immortal who had attacked and caused my turn,” she pointed out. “But it didn’t matter. Juan left four men to watch my abuela’s home in case I returned. They were immortals, Enforcers, I suspect. Come morning, six more immortals came, four to replace the men guarding the house, and two who followed at a distance when my abuela walked to work and back. I couldn’t approach her,” she said with remembered helplessness and frustration.
“In the end, I had to give up. I wrote a note to tell her that I remembered what had happened and who my attacker was. That I hurt my attacker while defending myself and accidentally turned myself in the process. I told her I loved her so very much, but feared retribution and had to flee, both to keep her safe as well as for my own safety. I then gave the note to an old friend of my abuela’s to give to her.”
“And never saw her again,” G.G. said, sadness in his tone.
Feeling tears prick the backs of her eyes, Ildaria turned away to grab the tea towel she’d left folded neatly on the counter. Using it as a makeshift oven mitt, she opened the oven and pulled out the muffins. They were golden brown and smelled delicious, but she’d lost her appetite. Still, she set them on the stovetop to cool a bit, and then fetched plates, knives, and butter.
“I’m sorry, Ildaria. You lost everything. It must have felt like the end of the world,” G.G. said softly.
Ildaria shrugged as she set the items she’d collected on the island in front of him. She was not going to feel sorry for herself. She never did that, and muttered, “I did it to myself. Obviously, I didn’t learn from my mother’s mistakes. I just had to rebel and go to the bar.”
“Bloody hell, do not tell me you have been blaming yourself for all of this for the last two hundred years?” he exclaimed with dismay.
“If I hadn’t gone to the bar and drank—”
“If your mother hadn’t been an alcoholic slut jumping from one bed to the other,” he interrupted, shocking her into silence so that he continued. “Or if her last boyfriend hadn’t molested you and killed her. Or if Juan had just saved you and walked you home rather than sexually assault you himself . . .” He paused, glaring at her. “That’s what you should be saying. You didn’t bring any of those things on yourself, and the small part you played by accompanying your friends to the bar where an older brother was going to look out for you was something every kid does at some point, and you were the kid,” he reminded her firmly. “You were a fourteen-year-old girl. A child, and you were only four when you were first molested. Do you blame yourself for that too?”
“No, of course not,” she said at once. “Mostly I don’t even think about that part of my history.”
“But it and the attack ten years later are the reason you lack experience with sex,” he said quietly.
Ildaria blinked several times, and then sighed with defeat as she recalled that had been the point of this talk. Explaining her lack of experience while not being a virgin. “Si.”
“And why you haven’t really been . . . assertive in the shared dreams, but have left me to lead,” he suggested.
She nodded, and then smiled crookedly and pointed out, “Although I’m pretty sure I am the one who put myself naked in a bed and chained to it in the English room of the Night Club. You looked pretty shocked when you turned and saw me like that.”
“Yes. I was,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I was also surprised when your wrists were suddenly loose later.”
“I wanted to touch you,” she admitted simply.
G.G. nodded, but then asked wearily, “What are we going to do about this?”
Ildaria stiffened warily. “About the dreams?”
“About my being a possible life mate for you,” he corrected.
She stared at him briefly, and then turned and grabbed a large plate and started to move the still warm muffins from the muffin pan to the plate before she said, “That is up to you.”
“But what do you want?”
“I would like you to agree to be my life mate,” she said stiffly.
“Even if I refuse to turn?” he asked.
Ildaria let out a slow breath. At least, he hadn’t refused outright to be her life mate, or gone running screaming from the room at the idea, as Marguerite had feared. Turning, she carried the plate of muffins to the island and set it in front of him before meeting his gaze. “Si.”
G.G. considered her briefly, and she could almost see the cogs turning in his head. She had no idea what he was thinking though.
“Okay,” he said finally.
Ildaria stared at him uncertainly. “Okay?”
“Okay, I would like to be your life mate,” he explained gently.
Ildaria beamed at him, feeli
ng like she’d just won the lottery. She had a life mate.
“But,” he added, and her smile faltered. “You need to accept that I won’t agree to the turn. Ever. I’m happy having one life, Ildaria. I don’t want to drink blood to survive.”
Ildaria merely nodded. It was no more than she’d expected, and she could deal with that. It would be hard to watch him age and die, of course, but she wasn’t the first immortal with a life mate who refused to turn and she could deal with it. She’d have him at least for a while, Ildaria told herself and simply said, “I suspected that would be the case. I accept.”
G.G.’s eyebrows rose. “That easily? No trying to convince me? No argument?”
She shrugged. “One piece of cake in your life is better than never having any.”
That surprised a short laugh out of him. “Did you just call me cake?”
“Maybe,” she said with a small smile. “Although it probably should have been beefcake.”
They shared a smile and then he grabbed a muffin off the plate and moved it to his own. As he cut and buttered the muffin, he said, “I think we should go slow for now.”
“Slow?” she asked, moving back to begin putting fresh paper muffin cups in the now empty muffin pan.
“I think we should go on dates, get to know each other better . . . but stick to dream sex for now,” he suggested.
Ildaria continued what she was doing, finishing off with the paper muffin cups and then switching to filling them, but her mind was working. If he thought they could do that, he didn’t know as much about immortals as she’d thought. At least, not about life mates. Resisting each other would be damned near impossible.
“I know it will be hard,” G.G. added, when she didn’t comment. “We’ll have to be careful, but I think if we avoid touching each other—”
