"Because there are none. Through a genetic failure, Breed offspring are solely male, from the very first of the line, down through hundreds of generations."
This last revelation, among all the other astonishing news she was hearing, gave her pause. "So, that means your mother is human?"
Lucan gave a slight nod. "She was."
"And your father? He was..."
Before she could say the word vampire, Lucan replied. "My father, and the seven other Ancient Ones like him, were not of this world. They were the first of my kind, beings from another place, very different from this planet."
It took her a second to absorb what she had heard, particularly on the heels of everything else she was coming to grips with at the moment. "What are you saying - they were aliens?"
"They were explorers. Savage, warminded conquerors, in fact, who crash-landed here a very long time ago."
Gabrielle stared at him. "Your father was not only a vampire, but an alien besides? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?"
"It is the truth. My father's people did not call themselves vampires but, by human definition, that is what they were. Their digestive systems were too advanced for Earth's crude protein. They could not process the plants or animals as humans did, so they learned to take their nourishment from blood. They fed without restraint and wiped out entire populations in the process. You've heard of some of them, no doubt: Atlantis. The Mayan kingdom. Countless other unnamed, unrecorded civilizations that vanished seemingly overnight. Many of the mass deaths historically attributed to plagues and famine were not that at all."
Good Lord.
"Assuming you can be taken seriously about any of this, you're talking about thousands of years of carnage." A chill spread over her limbs when he said nothing to deny it. "Do they they... do you - God, I can't believe I'm having this conversation. Do vampires feed on any living thing, like each other maybe, or are we humans the main course?"
Lucan's expression was grave. "Human blood alone contains the specific combinations of nutrients we need in order to survive."
"How often?"
"We must feed every few days, a week sometimes. More is required if we are injured and need strength to heal from wounds."
"And you... kill when you feed?"
"Not always, seldom, in fact. Most of the race feeds from willing human Hosts."
"People actually volunteer to let you torture them?" she asked, incredulous.
"There is no torture involved, unless we will it. When a human is relaxed, the bite of a vampire can be very pleasurable. When it's over, the Host recalls nothing because we leave no memory of ourselves behind."
"But you do kill sometimes," she said, finding it hard not to sound accusing.
"At times, it is necessary to take a life. The Breed shares an oath never to prey on the innocent or infirm."
She scoffed. "How noble of you."
"It is noble, Gabrielle. If we wanted to - if we gave ourselves over to that part of us that is still the warring conqueror of our forebears, we could enslave all of mankind. We could be kings, with every human existing only to feed and amuse us. That very idea is at the core of a long, deadly battle between my kind and our enemy brothers, the Rogues. You saw some of them yourself, that night outside the dance club."
"You were there?"
As soon as she said it, she knew he had been. She recalled the striking face and sunglass-shaded eyes that had watched her through the crowd. She'd felt a connection to him even then, in that brief glance that had seemed to reach out to her through the smoke and darkness of the club.
"I'd been tracking that group of Rogues for about an hour," Lucan said, "watching for the prime opportunity to move in and take them out."
"There were six of them," she remembered vividly, seeing in her mind the half-dozen terrible faces, their glowing, feral eyes and snapping fangs. "You were going to confront them by yourself?"
His shrug seemed to say that it was not unusual odds, him against many. "I had some help that night - you and your cell phone camera. The flash surprised them, gave me the chance to strike."
"You killed them?"
"All but one. I'll get him, too."
Looking at his fierce expression, Gabrielle had no doubt that he would. "The cops sent a squad car out to the club after I reported the killing. They didn't find anything. No evidence at all."