A WHISPER OF ETERNIT

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Muttering an oath, he wrested his arm from her grasp.

She stood on her own, looking up at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. Though it was late night, she could see clearly.The veins in the leaves on the trees.The individual threads in the stranger's coat.The thin plume of smoke rising from the inn.

She looked at him and laughed out loud; then, extending her arms out to her sides, she twirled around and around.

"Vampire!"She shouted it to the stars. "I am vampire!"

That night, the stranger, whose name was Wolfric , told her all she needed to know to survive. She listened intently, though now and then her attention was drawn away. It was difficult to concentrate on one thing when there was so much to see, to hear. Every sense was heightened, sharpened.

When, near dawn, he rose to leave her, she clung to his hand, begging him not to go. He had smiled down at her and for the first time she noted how very weary he looked.
"Enjoy your new life, mein kleines ," he had said kindly.

Tears filled her eyes, dripped onto her hand, as red as blood. Tenderly, he had stroked her cheek. "Remember me."
"Please do not leave me. I am afraid."

"There is nothing to fear."

"Where are you going? Will I ever see you again?"

Rising, he had drawn her up against him and kissed her cheek."Auf wiedersehen." "Wait!"

Even before the word left her lips, he was gone in a twinkling of silver mist.
And she had known, on some deep instinctivelevel, that he had gone to meet the sun.

Rising, she bathed,then dressed with care. Like many newly made vampires, the lust for blood had been overpowering. In the beginning, the hunger had been unbearable and she had taken lives, perhaps more than necessary. Back then, she had lacked the patience to feed slowly and in her haste and hunger, she had killed indiscriminately. In time, she had learned to control the hunger, to feed at her leisure. She had learned it was not necessary to kill to survive, that she could leave her prey alive, if she chose, though she rarely did so.

There was, after all, no end of handsome young men to feast upon. Though she had bewitched many of them through the years, she had bequeathed the Dark Gift to but a few. Like Dominic. Even after all these centuries, she regretted her foolishness in letting him get away. But she had still been a young vampire then, easily amused, quickly bored.