At Killian’s instruction, the coach set off. He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the velvet squabs, baring the strong column of his throat. Once, Sarah stretched out her hand, almost brave enough to lay her fingers against his neck and feel the steady, solid throb of the pulse that beat beneath his skin. In the end, she dropped her hand and contented herself with letting her gaze roam his features. Her heart swelled with the knowledge that he had come for her.

He had cared enough to come for her.

She concentrated on the wonder of that rather than the multitude of questions that their cryptic dialogue had skirted.

Mindful of the light, she leaned close to the window and peeked through the lifted edge of the blind as the carriage rocked to a halt before Killian’s town home in Berkeley Square. His was the last house in a row of very large, very tall houses. There was a black ironwork fence surrounding the entirety, with a break at the stairs that ascended to the front door, and another that descended to the servants’ entry.

Sarah counted four floors, each with three large rectangular windows across the front, save for the ground floor, which had two windows to the left of the front door.

After a moment, the liveried footman opened the carriage door and waited as Sarah gathered her candle dish and the magazine. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, staring at the curled and faded pages...wondering...

Raising her gaze, she found Killian watching her, his expression bland and cool.

She turned away, and let the footman hand her down from the coach. Killian descended behind her. She glanced back to see that he had put his spectacles in place to shade his eyes. He kept his head bowed, his thick, honey gold hair falling forward to veil his features.

Without a word, he offered his arm, and she sensed that any questions she had would be better spoken indoors rather than out here, for it was clear that even this dim, cloud-filtered light was uncomfortable for him.

They ascended the stairs and he did not wait for a butler or maid to open the door, but opened it himself and gestured for Sarah to precede him inside. The hallway was dark but beautiful. Paneled walls of rich gleaming wood. A semi-circular console table just inside the entry with a vase of deep red roses. There was thought and artistry in the presentation.

The scent of beeswax left a faint signature in the air, topped by the breath of the roses. Killian drew off his gloves and tossed them on the table, then swung his cloak from about his broad shoulders and handed it to a maid who stepped forward and curtsied before taking the garment from his hands.

Sarah caught her breath as Killian stepped around behind her to stand close at her back. His breath fanned her neck, sending shivers of awareness dancing across her skin.

“May I?” he murmured, and she nodded, wordless. He took her cloak and passed it to the maid. And then they were alone. He radiated warmth. She could feel it through all the layers of her clothing and his. How long since she had been warm? Truly warm? Body, heart, and mind. She had been frozen for so long. Certainly, since her father had died, but at this moment, she thought she had been frozen even before that, her existence held within a rigid box that was imposed by her sex, by society, by expectations. Despite her father’s nature, the fact that he had viewed her as an asset in his work and treated her not merely as a daughter, but as a person in her own right, she had been denied the opportunity to be all that she dreamed. She was grateful that her father had fed her curiosity, stimulated her mind. Even so, she had felt that she could only walk so far along the road before she met a solid gate that barred her passage.

She looked at Killian and asked, “Why?” He did not request clarification. He seemed to understand what she asked. Why me? What is it that draws you?

He removed his dark spectacles and looked down at her for a long moment, his expression solemn. Then he rested his palm on the top of her head. “Because your thoughts, your intellect, your dry wit appeal to me.” He slid his hand lower and brushed the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. She caught her breath at the contact, struck by the urge to take his thumb in her mouth, to suck on it and taste his skin. “Because the things you say are interesting or funny or wise. Or simply soothing, the sound of your voice, the cadence of your speech.” He stroked his fingertips along her throat, his gaze never leaving hers, then let them slide along her breastbone, and lower, to her waist, her hip. There, he stopped, resting his palm on the side of her hip so his long, strong fingers curved to follow the curve of her buttock. He leaned a little closer. “Because you are not fearless but brave. Because you have a moral core that guides your choices.”

His pupils were dark, surrounded by a thin rim of gray.

Her breath came too fast, too shallow.

“Because,” he said as he walked around her so he stood at her back and leaned close to speak against her ear, his hand sliding forward, his long fingers splayed across her belly. Society would have her protest, refuse his touch, but at this moment Sarah could not think of a single reason to heed society’s norms and expectations. She liked the feel of his hands on her far too much.

“You make me feel things I had thought buried,” he continued. She let her head tip back to rest against him. “I want to touch you, Sarah, caress you, make you cry out in pleasure. I want to coddle you and protect you, even as I want to set you free. I want to watch you fly. I want to give you the world.”

With his hand curled around the back of her neck, he walked around so he faced her once more. “Have you been with a man?” he asked, his voice a low rasp.

Her voice was gone, stolen by the heat of his fingers on her skin and the look in his eyes. Her only answer was a shake of her head.

“I want you, Sarah,” he said, his gaze never leaving hers. “I have wanted you from the moment I first saw you. I want to kiss you, taste you. I want you in my arms and underneath me in my bed. I want to fill your body and your thoughts. I want to hear you scream my name.”

His words wound through her thoughts, making her see the picture he painted. Her breath came too fast, uneven. Her head spun. She wanted all he described. She wanted him.

She leaned toward him. It was enough. With a sound of pleasure, he pulled her against him, his mouth on hers, hard, demanding. His tongue slid past her lips and she opened in invitation, tasting him, teasing him. He moved his lips to her throat, his tongue tasting her skin, her pulse beating a wild and wicked tattoo.

And then he stepped away.

“What…” Sarah wet her lips.

“Choose,” he said. “Choose while your thoughts are not muddled by my kisses. Choose to walk to your left and I will ring the maid to serve tea in the parlor.”

“And my second choice?” she asked, still breathless.

Killian offered his hand, his lashes sweeping down to hide his eyes.

Take his hand and follow where he led. Take his hand and follow to a place where he would kiss her and taste her and make her scream his name.

She took his hand. His lashes swept up, his gaze triumphant and joyous.

Killian twined his fingers with hers and led her through the house, up carpeted stairs with banisters of gleaming polished wood, through hallways lit only by lamplight, the heavy draperies pulled across the windows.

At last, they reached a heavy double door, and he threw it open then drew her inside.

“My lair,” he murmured, and a tickle of apprehension crawled through her at his choice of words.

She hesitated then stepped deeper into the chamber. The walls were covered in blue paper that had a subtle texture, like velvet. A thick, soft carpet of darker blue with a design of green and yellow birds covered the floor. There were two large chairs before the fireplace, each matched with a low footstool. A spacious room, handsome in appearance.

“You like fine things,” she observed.

“I do.”

“Yet you work in one of the poorest hospitals in the city.”

An instant of silence. Then, “Because they do not have fine things. I dislike the imbalance.”

She recalled the way he tucked shillings into the night nurse’s apron and realized that she had already known this about him, though she had not defined it in such a pared down manner.

Her feelings for him bubbled to the surface, and she turned away lest he read them in her gaze. The feelings she had for him were too new, too raw. She was not ready to explain, perhaps to have them rebuffed. She did not think she could bear that.

Pressing her lips together, she shifted closer to the fireplace. Above the oaken mantelpiece was a large painting of a river. The dominant colors were blue and aqua and yellow and gold. She gazed up in mute wonder, drawn into the beauty and brightness of the watercolor.

“Turner,” Killian murmured from behind her. “Some call him the painter of light.”

It was true. The painting embodied light, captured it and set it free, pure and brilliant. And Killian hung it in his chamber, he who clung only to the shadows.

The thought made her sad.

He was not a creature of light. That much was clear.

“Do you long for it, for the sunlight? For the warmth of it on your skin?” She could not tear her eyes from the painting. She felt as though the sun’s rays poured from the canvas to touch her face.

“No, I do not long for it. Not anymore. The moonlight has a cool and wonderful beauty, the night its own sweet music.” He moved close behind her. She could feel the heat of him. “I remember the sunlight with a vague and hazy fondness, but I do not long for it. It was a small sacrifice in exchange for all I have gained. I have learned to love the night.”

His words brought so many questions to her lips, questions she dared not ask for she was not yet certain what she would do with the answers. She closed her eyes, every sense tingling with awareness, with the knowledge that he was so close. All she had to do was reach out and she could know the answers to untold mysteries. About him. About herself.

If only she dared.

Dipping his head until his nose grazed the skin of her neck, he breathed in, his nearness and his action combining to set her heart racing. She ached for the stroke of his hand, the feel of his lips.

Closing her eyes, she leaned back a little into his embrace.

“Be certain, Sarah,” he whispered against the side of her throat, sending a tinkling cascade dancing through her.

She knew all he meant with those softly voiced words. Be certain it was this she wanted, him she wanted. The unconventional life he offered. She did not know where he meant this to lead, but she could not imagine he offered her forever. She imagined he wanted her for his mistress for a time, and she refused to let societal judgment steal this joy. She would be his mistress and she would enjoy the moments they had together to the fullest.

“I am certain,” she whispered. She had no wish to cling to her past, had no idea of her future. In this moment, she was changed from the woman she had always been. In this moment, she wanted only to live, to allow herself that luxury, that beauty. To know Killian’s touch, to offer him her love, even if this day was all she ever had of him, all they ever shared.

Tomorrow would come regardless, and it would hold the same fears and uncertainties whether she indulged her heart or not. So, for one shining snippet of the unfurling ribbon that was her life, she would grab hold of what she wanted and take what she could.

Reaching up, she pulled the pins from her hair and let it fall about her shoulders and down her back.

“Your hair is beautiful, a sleek, dark curtain with just a whisper of wayward curl at the ends.” He stroked his palm down the length, emphasizing his point. That touch made her mouth go dry and her pulse jerk like a skittish colt.

“You are beautiful, Sarah.” His words and the rich, lovely cadence of his voice mesmerized her. “The pink flush of your skin—” he drew his thumb along the edge of her jaw “—the lush curve of your lips—” his fingers slid to her lips, rubbed and stroked, and as her mouth opened on a gasp, the tip of his index finger dipped inside “—you are so lovely to me.”

On instinct, she licked his fingertip, then closed her teeth on him and bit down.

His sharp intake of breath stabbed through her, sinking to her breasts, her belly, her trembling legs. Because she knew she ignited him. There was a lush and heady pleasure in that.

“You bite,” he murmured.

She hesitated but an instant, then whispered, “As, I suspect, do you.” There. She had done it. Acknowledged the secret that hovered between them. On some level, she understood. And she knew that he would not hurt her.

He pulled her toward him then, taking her mouth in a hungry kiss, his tongue tasting her, his teeth nipping lightly at her lips. Pleasure spilled through her blood like a tide, making her breath rasp and her pulse race. Her skin felt too tight. Her clothes were unbearable fetters, and she hissed a sigh of relief as he began to loosen them. He slid each piece from her, kissing and caressing every inch of skin he bared. He ran his tongue along the top of her breast, and she arched her back, offering herself to him. She wanted the rest of her clothing gone. She wanted his mouth on her everywhere.

Modesty demanded she blush and protest. Desire demanded that she open her mouth and taste him as he tasted her. She twined her fingers in his hair and brought her mouth to his, certain that if she did not kiss him, she would not survive it. The flavor of his kiss was heady, more wonderful than the finest wine she had ever sampled.

The cool air in the room touched her, making her shiver. The sheets of his bed were even cooler as he guided her there and pressed her back against them, his fingers splayed lightly across her throat. She could feel her pulse drumming against his fingertips.

With a groan, he traced his tongue along her jaw, her throat, his mouth coming to lie against her pulse. He kissed her there, his mouth open, insistent. She arched her neck, the graze of his teeth making her gasp, sending spiraling tendrils of need winding through her veins.

Feeling weightless and dizzy and wonderfully alive, she lay back and watched as he dragged off his coat, then his shirt, pulling the cloth over his head and down his arms. He bared the wonderful mystery of his chest, covered in dark gold hair that tapered to a thin line down the middle of his taut belly. She had seen shirtless men before, but none had been Killian. She came up on her knees and traced the tips of two fingers along the ridges of muscle that formed his chest, his belly.

“You are lovely,” she whispered. He was. But she had expected that, expected the lithe, lean lines and sculpted edges. She studied him in open curiosity, awed and amazed, and he laughed, a low wicked chuckle that stroked her senses.

His eyes never left hers as he prowled closer to rest his knee between her own on the mattress. He kissed her and eased her back so she lay beneath him.

Her body arched of its own accord, instinctively seeking his touch as he trailed his fingers down her neck, along her collar bone, to the swell of her breast above the thin cotton of her chemise. Feeling like a bow drawn taut, bent to its limit, she waited to see what he would do next.

A gasp escaped her, and it became a purr as he closed his hand about the soft flesh of her breast, stroked his thumb over her tight nipple through the thin cloth of her chemise. He lowered his head and closed his lips on her through the cloth, gentle suction that gave way to a more demanding pull. The sensation was like fire and ice and fireworks exploding in the sky, only the explosion was inside her, inside her blood, an aching need that spread. Heat. Liquid heat.

“Please.” She knew not what she begged for. But he knew.

Reaching down, he closed his fists in her chemise and tore it open, baring her to his gaze, his touch. His features were hard, hungry, and the way he looked at her made an answering hunger rear inside her.

He let his weight down full upon her, wonderfully heavy, holding her and freeing her, the hard ridge of his arousal between her thighs. She had never felt anything more breathtaking, more sensual. Longing burgeoned and swelled, and she cried out as he closed his mouth again on her nipple, the erotic tug making her body squirm. Then he offered sweet kisses and gentle bites until she was panting and writhing beneath him.

Running her hands along his shoulders and down the hard planes of his chest, she explored the feel of his smooth skin, taut over lean layers of muscle. He was wonderfully masculine, wonderfully appealing.

His mouth moved again to her throat, his hands skimming her waist, and lower, dipping between her thighs to touch her sex. She felt swollen and tender and pliant and wet and when he touched her there, all those things combined into a tight, restless coil. She ached for his touch there, but his touch made her feel as though she needed to squirm and writhe. She moaned, lost in sensation.

She had never imagined this. Never. It was like a tempest inside her own body, a magnificent tempest that lured her to fling herself into the storm with untrammeled abandon.

Her body stirred, her hips rolling in a way she did not deliberately intend. But the movement felt so good, so right. She felt as though he led her to a place she had always known and never even thought to look for. Hot and quivering, sensation poured through her. She was alive, so alive.

Between her thighs, his arousal was thick and heavy, pressing against her sex. Again, her hips rocked up, and she felt a slick pressure, there, between her folds. The pressure became a burn, and the burn became pain. But before she could protest, he slid his hand between them and his fingers—those clever fingers—made her crave the burn, the pressure, the invasion. She opened to him, sliding her heels along the smooth, soft sheets, shifting to an angle that increased the incredible feelings he stirred.

Cupping her breast, he stroked her and rocked his hips to bring himself tighter against her. There was a tautness, a pressure as he pushed inside her a little more, and she gave a shocked cry at the intrusion, the foreign sensation of being stretched and entered.

He held himself back. She could feel that in the leashed tension of his body. A press; a release. Just a little of his erection easing in to fill and stretch. It was alien and frightening and beguiling all at once, and she could not help but catch his rhythm and move with him. Again and again until she was panting, half in apprehension, half in wild abandon.

What a mad slurry of feelings. She wanted him, ached for him, but could not help but be a little afraid of the unknown.

And then it was unknown no longer. He pushed harder, the stretching so powerful and strange, she cried out. A sharp instant of discomfort, a burning, an ache, and then he was inside her, deep inside her, fully sheathed.

She lay there panting, a little dismayed.

As though he knew everything she felt, he simply stayed as he was, allowed her to understand the feeling of his body joined with hers, and then he began to move, a shallow thrust, a retreat. She didn’t dislike it, not precisely, but…

He slid his hand down her belly to her soft curls, to her slick folds and the place so sensitive it made her moan. He caressed her there with lazy swirls of his fingers until she gasped and arched up to meet each shallow thrust. Wanting more. Needing more. He moved faster now, and deeper, and while the pain was not completely gone, it wasn’t precisely pain anymore. And as his fingers pressed harder and slid faster, she arched and dug her heels against the sheets, striving and failing to find that which she craved.

With a little cry, she reached down and locked her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand exactly where it was, aching for something she could not name.

Too much. It was all too much. She could not bear it, could not hold fast to the spiraling pieces of herself.

She twined her fingers through his hair as he thrust deep and hard, his breath ragged as he turned his face into the crook of her elbow.

Hot and sharp, she felt his bite, there on the soft skin at the inside of her elbow.

“Killian—” She cried out, and tried to make him understand, but it was too late. The sensation of his fingers sliding along her wet sex, and the feel of his penis moving inside her...She was flying apart, a thousand shining bits of her all flying apart.

And he was with her, flying with her, his release coming an instant after her own as he thrust deep one last time, throbbing inside her, spilling himself inside her.

She clung to him, floating, and finally drifting back to herself.

Panting, bewildered, wonderfully replete, she lay there and stared up at the gilded ceiling, one arm draped across Killian’s broad back, the other flung free across the sheets.

He kissed her neck, her cheek, and finally roused himself to lift his weight from her and roll to the side. She missed it immediately. The weight of him. The heat.

She snuggled against him and smiled as he slid his arm around her and drew her close. Slowly, she lifted her lids, and languidly eased her arm across his chest.

Frowning, she stared at the golden expanse of his skin, and it took her a moment to understand what she saw.

Blood. She had left a smear of blood when she moved her arm over his skin.

She jerked to a sitting position and stared at the crook of her elbow. Her veins traced blue beneath her skin, and there were two small punctures there and a small smear of her blood.

He had bitten her. Tasted her. The thought was both appalling and fascinating.

Her gaze jerked to his, and she found him watching her, his lips drawn taut, his eyes pinched.

“Killian,” she whispered, a question, a plea.

His gaze never leaving hers, he reached out and traced his index finger across the blood on her arm, then brought it to his mouth and drew it across his lower lip.

On some level, she knew she ought to be repulsed, but the sight of him—the smear of crimson on his lips, the trace of his tongue as he licked it, the look of pleasure on his face as he tasted her—was incredibly sensual.

Yes, she ought to feel disgusted, horrified, afraid, but all she felt was love. Acceptance. Blood held no mysteries or horrors for her. How could it? She had mopped up buckets upon buckets in her time at King’s College, not to mention the years she had worked by her father’s side.

“Have I shocked you beyond bearing?” he asked.

Wetting her lips, she took a second before she answered, and then she offered the truth.

“Shocked me? Yes. I am shocked, but not so much by what you did, as by the way I feel about it.” She paused, and he gave her the moment, gave her time to collect her thoughts. “I am neither horrified nor repulsed, and that is the shocking thing. I found it...” She shook her head, trying to understand her own emotions. “Is blood essential to you? For your survival?”

“Yes. But that was not for survival. I did not feed from you, Sarah. That was but a tiny sip. It is a—” he made an absent gesture “—for my kind, it is a form of connection. I come into you and you come into me.”

Somehow, she understood that. She had felt connected to him, as though for a single glittering instant, they were one.

“You did not feed from me…but you do feed?”

“Occasionally.” He made a small smile. “Not often. And the bowls of blood the physicians bleed from their patients ought not go to waste.”

She felt her lips twitch in an answering smile, and she wondered if she ought to be horrified by that. Her father had always deemed the practice of bloodletting to be both dangerous and barbaric. She could hardly fault Killian for putting the folly of others to a beneficial use.

Suddenly, the magnitude of their discourse overwhelmed her, and she fell back on the sheets to stare at the gilded ceiling.

“That story in the magazine...You are—”

“Nothing like the monster in the story,” Killian offered. “But, yes, I am a vampire.”

He leaned in as though to kiss her, but held himself inches above her, hovering just beyond reach, his gaze locked on hers.

She understood then. The choice was hers. To deny him or to clasp him to her, press her mouth to his, accept him for all he was.

To accept that he was a vampire.

“Does it cause you pain?” he asked, touching the marks on her skin.

“It…stings,” she said.

He bit down on his tongue and licked the wounds he had made on her. To her astonishment the sting disappeared, and the marks with it.

“Oh, let me see!” She surged forward and peeled back his lips and he laughed as she poked at his tongue. “There’s no wound.”

“I heal from all wounds,” he said.

“And you healed my wounds…” Her eyes grew wide. “Killian, imagine! You can cure disease, heal horrific injuries, you can—”

He pressed two fingers to her lips. “I cannot. I can heal only tiny wounds in humans with the application of my blood, and then only if my blood touches the wound from the fount. Anything larger than a prick or a scratch does not respond, and if I bleed myself into a tube or beaker, my blood alters immediately and loses whatever minimal curative power it has.”

Sarah thought for a moment, and then nodded. “That makes sense.”

Killian’s brows rose. “It does?” he asked as he twined his fingers with hers and drew her hand up to kiss her palm.

“Of course. If you are—” she cut him a sidelong glance “—feeding and you are interrupted or have had your fill and wish to save a portion of your meal for later, it makes sense that you could seal a wound so that your prey would not bleed to death and would be available at a different time.”

Killian stared at her then he laughed. “You are ever practical.”

And Sarah laughed at the wonder in his tone, as though her practicality were some wonderful and desirable treasure.

After a moment she asked, “What we just shared...Was it an act of love for you, the taking of my blood?”

His lashes swept down.

“An act of connection,” he said, his voice ragged. “I have lived alone for more years than you can imagine. I dare not let myself love.” He looked at her then, his expression so bleak that her heart broke for him. “To love means to lose, Sarah. I cannot. I dare not. It is a path to madness for one such as me.” He made a muted groan. “I think that in the years of emptiness, I have forgotten how to love. But I can keep you safe. I can make you happy. Those things I can offer you. And I can offer you truth. I want you.”

Tears welled, and she made no effort to stem their flow, but let them trickle from the corners of her eyes and across her temples. She would not hide them from him as he had not hidden the truth from her. He did not love her. Could not love her. But he wanted her.

She lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his. She could taste the faintly metallic hint of her own blood on his lips.

“Sarah—”

“Shh.” She pressed her fingers against his lips, then kissed him again. “It matters not, Killian. I have enough love for us both. I do. I will share my love with you, and it will be enough. I swear it will be enough.”

With a groan, he took her mouth in a hungry kiss. He made love to her once more, languid caresses and leisurely care, no part of her untouched. No part of her unloved.

But beneath his gentle care, she sensed his demons, tightly leashed.

And when they were both sated, the sheets rumpled and mussed, her heart thudding in the aftermath of passion, she stroked his hair and asked, “How long, Killian? How long have you been alone?”

His chest expanded on a deep breath, and she thought he would not answer. There was sadness for her in that, in his refusal to share any part of himself. Then he surprised her, his voice low and deep.

“Five hundred years, Sarah. I have been alone for five hundred years.”

The enormity of that slapped her, and she gasped. She could not imagine it, could not think how he had borne it.

“In all that time, you never took a companion, never shared yourself with anyone?”

“Physically, yes. I have taken many lovers. But not a companion. I brought none of them into my home, my haven. I showed only one woman the truth of what I am. She turned from me in disgust and I did not try again, not because I feared another rebuff, but because after a time, I was glad that she had been horrified, glad that she turned from me. I preferred my solitude even as I reviled it.” He smiled a little. “Do you understand?”

“I do,” she whispered. “Better than you think. I could have found a man to marry me—”

“But it would have cost you everything you are.”

“A price I will never be willing to pay,” she said.

* * *

Hours later, Killian sat propped on the pillows, feeding Sarah slices of apple dipped in honey. The sticky liquid clung to her lips, and when he leaned in and kissed her, it clung to his as well. He popped a slice in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, and Sarah watched him with unabashed curiosity.

“You eat,” she observed.

He laughed. “Yes.”

She laid her palm flat against his chest.

“Your heart beats.”

“It does,” he agreed, amused. “Despite the stories and mad suppositions, Sarah, I am not undead. My heart beats. And though my body does not require food, I can have the occasional bit if I choose, simply to enjoy the taste.”

“Just the occasional bit? That is all you require?”

“I require only blood. And in the beginning I could not tolerate food at all. But over time, I acquired a taste for the occasional morsel, especially sweets.” He grinned. “I always had a taste for sweets.”

She came up on her knees and studied him. “And sleep? Do you sleep?”

“I sleep when I must, usually a handful of hours each week, always during the daylight hours, for those are the hours when sleep lures me.”

“Do you feed every day?”

“I take it as I require, far less often now than in the early years.”

She nodded, and dipped her finger in the honey, then smeared it over his lips. Tipping her head, she kissed him, tasting honey, tasting him.

Then his words triggered a thought. “How often did you require it in the early years?” And that question triggered another. “How often do you require it now? How does it work? You said you take it from the bleeding bowls…how long after the patient is bled does the blood remain viable as a source of nourishment for you? Is there a difference when you feed directly from a person? Why blood? Is it the whole of it that you crave or just a single component? And—”

He rested his fingers on her lips, grinning at her. “Ever the physician, my Sarah. So curious.”

She laughed. “I am curious.” She paused. “Alright, answer the first question first. How often did you feed in the early years?”

“At least once each week. More often than that, if possible. It was like a madness, a thirst that could be assuaged no other way. And if I went too long, the madness became a maelstrom.”

Sarah tapped her lower lip, his answer sending her thoughts racing along different paths until one snagged her full attention. “The killer at King’s College,” she mused. “He takes the lives of those who are dying, those who suffer terrible pain. I think he believes it a mercy. But he does it often. Does that mean he is...new? That these are the early years for him?”

Killian blinked, and sat straight. “A newly made vampire. Yes. That makes sense. And he is making an effort to turn his thirst to the good, to find a way to control it.”

“Did you control it?” she asked, not quite certain that she wanted to know.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his bare feet on the carpet, and he turned his face to her over his shoulder, his expression somber.

“Not at first. At first, I was careless and greedy, drinking where I would. I did not murder indiscriminately. I tried to take from those who were already touched by death’s hand, or those who ought to be. The murderers. The villains. Those with true evil in their hearts.” He raked his hand back through his hair, and took a slow breath, as though deliberating how much to reveal. “I would have you know the truth, Sarah, though it paints me in a less than perfect light. I did not always drain my prey unto death, but I took no pains to ensure that I did not. I simply did not care if they lived or died.”

“But the vampire who hunts at King’s College does care,” she pointed out. “He kills on purpose, and he chooses to drain those who are suffering a horrible death.”

“A strange form of morality.”

“Killian, I think it is the vampire that follows me. I have seen him in the graveyard, sensed his presence behind me in the alleys. He dogs my steps.” She shook her head. “It is the same man, Killian. The man who stalks me is the same as the one who moves like a wraith through the wards, stealing lives.” She paused. “But that comes as no surprise to you, does it?”

“It does not. My kind are a territorial lot. We have an ability to sense other blood drinkers who step into a place we consider ours. I sensed him there, outside Mrs. Cowden’s house.”

She gasped, for though she had suspected it, hearing confirmation was disturbing. “What does he want with me? Why does he follow me?”

Killian reached back and took her hand. “I don’t know. I do not think he wishes to drain you. That would have been an easy feat for him and he would have done it long before now were that his intent.”

“How very reassuring,” she said.

Killian studied her for a moment. “He moves about only in the darkness,” he said. “His pattern indicates he is too new to have built up any sort of tolerance of the light.”

“That is why you told me I would be safe in the light.” And as she thought about it now, she realized it was true. She had never felt the sensation of being watched, being followed, in the daylight. Only in the hours between dusk and dawn. “But you can move about in the light.”

He smiled at her then. “I can move about in the light, if I am careful and my skin covered, but I am centuries older than he.”

Centuries. Her breath locked in her throat. She was not accustomed to that yet. Hundreds of years, alone. She could not imagine it, could not imagine how he had borne it.

“What happens if you are exposed to the light?”

“Much the same as what happens if you are exposed for too long. My skin pinkens, then reddens. Blisters form. There is discomfort, then pain. It is not deadly, merely unpleasant. But if I stay in the light for a length of time and do nothing to protect myself, unpleasant turns to deadly. If I stand unprotected in the full light of the sun, I will burn to ash.”

“Burn to ash? How long?” She was horrified by the thought of Killina dying in the sunlight.

“How long can I bear the sun? I have experimented over the years and the duration increases exponentially. At present, the longest I have dared is an hour. And then it cost me a month of recovery. But the newly born will burn more quickly.” He paused and Sarah sensed that he was about to share something of import. “My maker cast himself into the sunlight and crumbled to ash with moments.”

Sarah didn’t know what story lay behind those words, but she sensed that it was one that yet caused Killian sadness. She crawled across the bed and wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek against his back.

“So sunlight can kill him,” she said. “What else? A pistol? A knife?”

For a moment, she thought he would not answer, would hold fast the secrets she longed now to know. Then he made a huffing exhalation and said, “There is very little now that can kill him.” After a pause, he finished softly, “Another vampire could do the deed.”

She shivered, reading his meaning in the things he did not say. “You will kill him, this newly made creature, if he does not agree to cease murdering people.”

“Yes and no. He must cease murdering in such a public manner. In truth, I have no argument with his choice of victim.”

“I dislike that word,” Sarah said with a shiver.

He made a soft sound. “I understand. But I will not lie to you or pretend my kind is other than what we are. Predators.”

Sarah nodded. “I know.” She paused. “The public manner of the killings…do they concern you because they could reveal the existence of vampires?”

“Even small children suspect that monsters exist. But suspicion is far different than certainty,” Killian said. “I cannot leave him free to dart about and kill indiscriminately, leaving proof that monsters exist. Therein lies a path to horror, for vampires and humans alike. There are not so many of my kind. I have gone for centuries without encountering another. But stir the terror that lurks inside the human heart and they will begin to see monsters where none exist. They will turn on their neighbors, accuse the innocent, breed fear and mistrust and kill each other. That I cannot allow.”

“So you will find him.”

“Had he chosen to remove the bodies, or hide the cause of their deaths, that would be a different matter.”

“Will you kill him?” Something about that thought disturbed her, though she could not say why.

“You dislike the idea,” Killian said, head tipped to one side.

“I don’t know why, but I do,” Sarah replied. “He frightened me, but never harmed me, and…”

“And?”

“I…” How to explain? “I once thought there was something familiar about him…”

“I have no desire to kill him. And I would like some answers. Who he is. Who made him. Why he claims King’s College as his hunting ground.” He took her hand and kissed her palm. “Why he follows you.”

“Is there danger, Killian? To you?”

“No.” She heard the smile in his voice as he replied. “He is newly made, and I... well, I am not.”

“I can help,” she said, and rushed on as he started to speak, intending, she was certain, to argue. “He will not know that I no longer work at King’s College. He will expect me to walk home this evening to Coptic Street, and that is exactly what I will do.”

Her heart thudded as she waited for his reply, waited to see if he would see the value of her plan.

A slow smile curved his lips, and he curled his fingers around her nape and drew her close for a hard kiss.

“A brilliant plan. You will walk to Coptic Street—” he cast her a sidelong look through his lashes “—and I will follow in your shadow.”

In that moment, she was both pleased that he valued her proposition, that he saw the importance of her participation, and faintly uneasy by the menace she sensed lurking just beneath the surface.

He shifted so his lips moved against her ear as he whispered, “I am what I am, Sarah. No matter how civilized, how controlled the veneer, beneath it all, I am the hunter, the monster, the fiend.”