“Then you should know I have never met a gentleman so open in his vulgarity. It took every effort not to drain him dry where he sat.”
“Yet still you brought him to your home.” He dropped the poker and turned to face her. She could see the disappointment in his eyes. “If he disgusted you as you say, why bring him here?”
The sudden pain in her chest caused her throat to constrict, and she fought back the flurry of emotion. “I brought him here because of you,” she cried. “I thought I could use him to forget you. I thought having him here would help to eradicate your memory. But I should have known it was an impossible task.”
“How long did he stay?”
“Two hours.”
Leo jerked his head back, and his disapproving stare cut her to the bone. “So you bit him and discarded him without a second thought?”
Ivana nodded as she gazed at the floor. “I couldn’t bear to have him here. Sylvester took him to the forest and left him there.”
He took a step towards her. “Did you not consider the fact he might be scared, terrified at the thought of waking to find he craved blood?”
“Did he consider the fact he could have fathered a child? That the child would be abandoned, left frightened and all alone with no way to fend for itself?”
Leo exhaled loudly but did not answer her question. “You said you had only turned three men. So there has been no one else since Alexander?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because now I know I could not bear to touch another man, to drink from him, share my blood so intimately with him.
“I … I found another way to be rid of them,” she said. “It takes but a drop of my blood in their ale for me to command their thoughts. It is far easier when they are inebriated to manipulate their minds.”
He snorted. “I suppose I should be relieved that there are not more men with our affliction.”
She could feel him withdrawing, pulling away from her, putting up a barrier.
“Come with me tomorrow,” she pleaded. “I will be calling on Herr Bruhn as I do most nights. Come see the children and then you will understand my motives.”
He dropped into the chair, his weary sigh tearing at her heart. “I do not know what to make of it all,” he said pushing his hands through his hair. “I do not know what to think.”
“You do not need to think anything. Take some time. Meet the children.” She sounded desperate for his approval, although after what she had done, she would never receive it. “But you should rest now.”
She would not rest tonight. She would lie in her bed trying so hard not to think of him, of his kiss, his touch, of the way he’d once loved her.
“What of me?” he muttered. “You must have been watching me too. You must have disapproved of my antics. You brought me here in your carriage, forced me to sleep.”
“You were drunk, behaving recklessly. When you took—” She closed her eyes briefly, swallowed down the pain the memory evoked. “When you took the maid from the tavern to your bed, I knew then it would only be a matter of time before you fathered a child here.”
“I understand that now, Ivana. I understand why you lured me from the tavern. I recall following you up through the forest until you bundled me into your carriage. Although, at the time, I didn’t know you sought to rob me of my humanity. But I still don’t understand why you brought me here.”
It had not been her intention, but some things were destined to be. “Do you believe in fate, Leo? Do you believe we will recognise our predetermined path if we look for the signs, the markers?”
“If I didn’t, I do now,” he said with a shrug.
“I dreamt of you, many times. I did not know it was you until we were in my carriage and something fo
rced me to taste your lips while you were sleeping.” Her heart skipped a beat as the vision flooded her mind. “That was all it took. Just one kiss and I knew I had found you.”
He thrust forward, hit his chest numerous times with his clenched fist. “Yet still you turned me into this.”
“As I said, you wanted to be with me. You felt the connection too. You wanted us to be together always. You might say a person could not possibly express such a depth of emotion after only a few short days. But I say, when you find the one you have lived with through many lifetimes, mortal time has no meaning, no value, no measure.”
“If I felt that way, why would I leave?”