A WHISPER OF ETERNIT

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hill. He was tall, even then, his skin dark, his hair long. He sat on a rock holding a small black lamb in his arms. In the distance, she saw a hut with a thatched roof. The scene changed and he was strolling down a cobblestone street with two other young men. They were laughing as they walked along. The scene changed yet again, and Dominic was seated at a small table in what looked like an inn. A woman sat beside him, a beautiful woman with long red hair and skin that was almost translucent. The woman smiled at him, a come-hither look in her dark eyes, and Dominic followed her out of the inn. The scene changed yet again and she saw the two of them sharing an embrace in a dimly lit room, saw the woman's lips draw back to reveal a pair of small white fangs…

Startled by what she saw,Tracy drew back, frowning.
Dominic looked down at her, askance.

She shook her head in wonder. "I… I saw you…" He lifted one brow. "Saw me?Where?"

"You were a little boy holding a lamb… a young man laughing with two other men." She swallowed hard. "I saw you with a woman. A beautiful woman with red hair…"

" Kitana."

"She bit you."

"Aye, she did indeed." "She was a vampire?"

There was a wrought iron bench under one of the trees. Dominic sat down, and after a moment,Tracy sat beside him.

"I had just turned twenty-five when I met her," he said. "Until then, I had done little, seen little. I knew nothing of the world beyond our little village, had no ambition other than to tend the sheep with my father. It was not a bad life. I had a few friends, and I had met a woman I planned to marry. And then I met Kitana . She was a wild Gypsy woman, more beautiful than any creature I had ever seen. She tempted me beyond all reason and I was suddenly filled with a restlessness I did not understand. And then one night she asked me to go away with her. She said she could arrange it so that I could be what she was, promised that I could live with her forever, if that was what I desired. I said yes without a moment's thought. Na?ve as I was, I thought she meant I would be as wild and free-spirited as she. I had no idea then what she really was, or what being like her entailed."

"So, you're saying she was a vampire?"

He nodded. "Yes. She was very old, and very powerful." "Did it hurt? Becoming a vampire?"

"The bite did not hurt. What came later was… frightening, more than anything else, though she could have made it easier for me."

"What came later?"