“But don’t you miss your husband?” he presses.
“Yes, but we aren’t getting along very well right now.” I get off him as the mood is ruined. “He hurt me,” I sulk.
“Of that I have no doubt. Seems to be a thing with us,” he mutters, and I stare at him.
“I miss Cassis,” I say suddenly.
He starts. “Cassis? You live in France?” he asks.
“What?” I ask, confused. “No, my daughter, Cassis. I miss her.”
He blanches. “Your daughter? You have a daughter?”
“Yes, with you. Well, my you, obviously. She is ours.”
He looks stricken with longing and again I see the similarities. “How old is she?” he chokes out.
“She was born two hundred and sixty-eight years ago. She has been turned two hundred and fifty years.” I don’t see a problem in revealing this information as it has nothing to do with either of them.
“She is a Vampire?”
“Yes. A human-born Dragon turned on her eighteenth birthday.”
“Just like Aefre said,” he mutters and then asks sharply, “By whom?”
“Someone close to us,” I say evasively. This is a sore subject with me, and not one I wish to discuss with a complete stranger.
“Who?” he demands again.
I shake my head. “No one you know here,” I lie.
“What does she look like?” he asks hesitantly, thankfully leaving the sire business for now.
“She is taller than
me by about three inches, with my blonde hair, but her face, her eyes are all you,” I say, stroking his beautiful, perfect face.
“She looks like me?” he asks in awe. “I mean, Other me.”
“She does,” I confirm gently.
He laughs then. “Oh, my Aefre will be freaking out,” he says. “She isn’t ready to be a mother, or so she says.”
I smile at him, but he looks so sad.
“Tell me about your turning,” he demands suddenly. “He got it right, so tell me how?”
“Oh, well he has a strange story to tell about that. I am not sure he was in his right mind,” I pause as something now isn’t sitting right about that.
“Go on.”
“Well, we met in the marketplace and I was so sure I wouldn’t see him again, even though I desperately wanted to. I made my way back to my cottage, but he must have followed me and was watching me because later that same night, while Radulf…”
“It’s okay, my Aefre went through the same,” he says quietly.
“Oh, well during an incident with Radulf, he came bursting into the cottage, much to my shock, and grabbed Radulf and killed him. Ripped his head right off his shoulders.” I stare at him as he looks pleased by that news. He adjusts his features and I continue, “He took me, ran off with me, and told me he would give me a better life, that I deserved so much more. He took me to an old Pagan circle a few miles south of London and he sat me down and told me all about himself. What he was, what he could give me. That he wanted me to be like him, if I wanted. That we were in the right place to do it properly. He said he would give me a couple of days to think about it, but that he knew it was right, as he had a vision. This is where the story gets a little bizarre.” I pause as he leans in closer.
“A vision?”