A WHISPER OF ETERNIT

Page 47



"And still you persist."

"I will have you for my own, my best beloved one, if I have to follow you into eternity."
"I don't want to be a vampire."

"Then I will love you as you are. We will be together in this life, as we have been together in your past lives. I will be at your side when death claims you, and I will find you when your soul is born again."

Talking of her own death sent a shiver downTracy 's spine. She had always been afraid of dying. Was it because she had experienced it so many times?Or because so many of her deaths had been violent or premature?

"How long have you been a vampire?"
"Two thousand and twenty-three years."

She stared at him in amazement. What would it be like to live for more than two thousand years?Never to grow old?Never to be sick? Never to see the sun… to watch your friends grow old and die while you stayed forever the same.

"It must be a lonely life," she remarked.
"It can be."

"Have you been lonely?"

His gaze rested gently on her face."Only when I could not find you."

His words, low and from the heart, obliterated whatever fear of him remained, though she was still wary. He was, after all, a vampire, and whatever memories of him she might have from past lives, she was no longer Nysa or Kiya or any of the others. She was Tracy Warner now, a twenty-first-century woman with a life and a career of her own. If, as he said, she had loved him in the past, it seemed she would have to learn to love him all over again in the present. And what if she didn't? She stared up at him, thinking he looked like an immense dark cloud looming over her. He didn't seem like the type of man who would just let her go if she decided she didn't want him around.

"Do we start over every time we meet?" It was one of a thousand questions churning in her mind.
He sat down in the chair across from her. "Yes."

"And do I always die in your arms?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever… drunk my blood?"
He shook his head. "No."

She saw the yearning in his eyes as he said, "I have been tempted, many times, but, no."