"Gabriel, please tell me what to do."
With an inhuman growl of despair, he whirled around to face her. "Go away!"
Sara stared up at him, at eyes that blazed in the darkness like hell's own fires, and knew she was looking into the face of death.
"What has happened to you?" she asked, her voice quivering with barely suppressed terror.
"Nothing has happened to me. This is what I am."
He bared his teeth, and Sara took a step backward. Even in the darkness, she could see his fangs, sharp and white and deadly. And the unearthly red glow in his eyes.
"Now will you go?"
His voice was ragged, his hands clenched at his sides as he struggled to control the hunger that burned through him.
Sara took a deep breath, fighting down the urge to run away as fast and as far as she could.
"No, Gabriel," she said with quiet determination. "I'll not leave you again."
The room was growing lighter, and she realized the sun had come up, that its light was slowly creeping down the stairs.
With a low cry, Gabriel spun away, his cloak swirling around his ankles like black smoke. Taking refuge in a corner untouched by the sun's searing brightness, he dropped into a crouch, his head lowered, his arms shielding his face.
Vampire.
The word echoed in her mind.
"Yes, Sara." Gabriel's voice, taut with pain, spoke to her from the shadows. "Vampire. That is what I am."
She shook her head. Vampires were creatures of fantasy and illusion, like Santa Claus. "I don't believe it."
"It's true nonetheless. Go now."
"You need blood."
He made a harsh sound that hovered somewhere between laughter and despair. "I thought you didn't believe."
"If you need blood, take mine." Were those her words? Sara wondered, unable to draw her gaze from his bowed head. Was that her voice, calmly urging him to take her blood?
"No!"
"Will it help you?"
She took his silence for assent. "Then take it, my angel. Take as much as you need."
"No!" He screamed the word, but, ah, the mere thought of it, to taste the very essence of her life… "No, I won't. I can't. Please, go away."
Relief washed through him as he heard her footsteps cross the floor and climb the stairs. She was leaving. Had he the right, he would have given thanks to the Almighty.
A moment later, his head jerked up and a feral growl rumbled in his throat as the scent of blood, tantalizing and sweetly fresh, reached his nostrils.
He whirled around to find Sara standing before him, her left arm extended. His gaze was instantly drawn to the small pool of blood welling from the shallow cut she had inflicted in her wrist.
Blood. Warm. Fresh. The essence of life. An end to the horrible agony knifing through him, a pain that grew ever worse now that the promise of relief was near.
Sara's blood.
Hands clenched at his sides, he shook his head. "No," he gasped. "Sara… no."
He shook his head as she walked toward him, helpless to resist when she pressed her bleeding flesh to his lips.
With a low cry of despair, his mouth locked on her arm, tasting her sweetness, feeling the life-giving fluid flow through him, easing the awful hunger that plagued him like the fires of hell.
Time lost all meaning as he gave himself over to the pleasure of satisfying a craving over which he no longer had control.
Sara… the essence of life, of light…
Sara!
He released her immediately, his heart pounding with fear as he
gazed
into her eyes. Had he taken too much?
"
Cara mia
, how do you feel?"
She blinked up at him. "I don't know. A little faint." Her gaze moved over his face, amazed to see that he already looked better. The deadly pallor was fading. "Do you need more? Is it enough?"
Was that her voice, sounding so calm as she asked him if he had taken enough of her blood? Had she finally gone mad? She should have been repulsed by what had just happened, sickened to think that he needed blood to survive, horrified that she had given him hers. But she wasn't repulsed or sickened or horrified. She was, in fact, sorry he hadn't taken more.
Had she imagined it, or had she actually felt a sense of pleasure that bordered on ecstasy when his mouth closed over her wrist? It was very strange, she thought. Very strange indeed.
"Sara." There was a wealth of misery in his voice as he ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt tail and wrapped it around the gash in her wrist, then turned away.
He could not face her. He felt naked and ashamed. She had seen him at his worst. Stripped of his dignity, of the thin mask of humanity, she had seen him for the monster he truly was, something no other mortal had ever witnessed and survived.
"Gabriel?"
"I'll be all right."
"You're sure? Perhaps you should…"
"I'm sure! Sara, please go now."
"No, I don't want to leave you."
He didn't think he'd taken enough blood to initiate her, but what if he had indeed taken too much? He didn't want to enslave her in that way, didn't want to strip her of her free will so that she would be forever bound to him, afraid to be without him. He didn't want to own her body and soul; he wanted her love, freely given.
Hands balled into tight fists, he turned to face her. "Please go," he said gently. "I need to be alone."
She didn't want to leave him. Didn't want to ever be away from him again, but the quiet pleading in his voice convinced her to go. "Very well. If that's what you want."
He felt a momentary surge of relief. If she was willing to leave him, even for a short time, all would be well.
She placed her hand on his arm, felt him tremble at her touch. "I'll be back later."
"No."
"I'll be back," she repeated in a voice that brooked no argument.
"Sara?"
"Yes?"
"The cross in front of the house. Remove it."
"All right."
"You must also wash the door frame."
"Anything else?"
"A circle made of holy water and garlic surrounds the house. Break it."
"I will."
He nodded, resenting the fact that he'd had to ask her for anything else when he'd already taken so much. "You know I can't stay here any longer."
Of course he couldn't stay here. It was no longer safe. Why hadn't she realized that before?"
"We've got to get you out of here," she said. "I'll be back in
a
little while. You rest until then."
"It's morning. I can't go out."
"I'll think of something," she said, and hurried away before he could argue further.
Outside, she took a deep breath, wishing she had thought to ask the carriage to wait. But perhaps a good long walk was just what she needed. Ordinarily, she would have been afraid to be out walking on a lonely road at dawn, but not now. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, refusing to think of what he was as she made her way back to town.
When she reached the city, she hired a closed carriage, dismissed the driver, and drove to her apartment.
Inside, she walked through the house, closing all the drapes. In her bedroom, she covered the curtains with a heavy quilt, so that no light at all filtered into the room. Then, laden with every blanket she could find, she drove back to the cottage.
Not wanting Sara to see him in his deathlike sleep, Gabriel roused himself when he sensed her approaching. Moving sluggishly, he reached for his cloak. Sewn into the lining was a fine layer of earth from Vallelunga. His native soil, necessary to his survival when he was away from his homeland.
It took all his strength, all his willpower, to meet her at the door. Had the sun been any higher in the sky, it would have been impossible.
"Come," she said, and covering him with three layers of blankets, she led him out of the cottage and into the carriage.
He huddled on the floor of the conveyance, the blankets spread over him, while she drove back to the city. He could feel the sun searching for him, feel its insufferable heat, knew that he would die in unspeakable agony if Sara betrayed him now.
It was still too early for there to be many people about. When they reached her apartment, she quickly unlocked the door, then ran down the steps to help Gabriel inside, guiding him into the bedroom.
He shook off the blankets, then sighed as the darkness closed around him.
"Do you need anything?" she asked.
"I need to be left alone," he said, and his voice was low and heavy, as if he had been drugged.
"All right."
"Promise me you won't come in here until after dark."
"Why?" she asked, and then, before he could reply, she made an impatient gesture with her hand. "I know. No questions."
"I would think you had all the answers you needed by now."
"Go to sleep, Gabriel. I promise not to disturb your rest."
He waited until she left the room, and then, after spreading his cloak on top of the counterpane, he stretched out on her bed and closed his eyes, the taste of her blood still hot on his tongue, her scent surrounding him, as he fell into darkness.
He woke at dusk. For a long while, he stayed where he was, recalling what had happened earlier in the day. Filled with rage, his body racked with pain, the hunger slicing through him like hot knives, he had been on the very brink of madness. And then Sara had come to him, offering him the surcease he needed. And he, cursed wretch that he was, had taken it.
Even now the thought of what he had done filled him with self-loathing.
Why had she helped him? Once she knew what kind of monster he was, why had she brought him here?
"Because I love you."
He sat up at the sound of her voice. "Don't."
"You said that before, remember?" Sara remarked as she entered the room. "I said I loved you and you told me not to."
"You should have listened."
"That story you told me, about the young man who traded his soul for another chance at life, that was you, wasn't it?"
He nodded, too ashamed to speak.
She sat down on the foot of the bed and studied him through wide, guileless eyes.
"How old are you, Gabriel? You would never tell me before."
"I was born in the winter of 1502."
She frowned a moment. "But that would make you…"
He nodded. "Three hundred and eighty-four years old."
It was impossible, inconceivable. And yet she knew it was true.
"You always said you were too old for me," she mused, and then she began to laugh uncontrollably.
Gabriel watched her from beneath hooded lids, his emotions in turmoil. He had made love to her, had given her his blood and taken hers. Though he had not taken enough of her blood to initiate her, they now shared a bond that could never be broken.
Sara looked at him, helpless, as her hysterical laughter dissolved into tears. And then he was holding her, his face buried in her hair. She felt his shoulders shake and she knew he was crying, too.
"Gabriel?" She drew away, her own tears forgotten in her need to comfort him.
A single tear hovered in the corner of his eye. A tear tinged with blood. Very carefully, she wiped it away with a corner of the bed sheet.
She stared at the bright red stain on the white linen and realized, for the first time, the full horror of who and what he was.
Vampire.
The undead.
Creatures who slept in coffins by day and prowled the darkness at night, preying on the weakness, and the blood, of others.
Gabriel was a vampire.
He saw the knowledge in her eyes, saw the realization that came as she recalled incidents from the past.
"That's why I never saw you eat," she said tonelessly. "Why I never saw you during the day. Why the burns on your face healed so quickly…"
She gasped as another startling realization came to the fore. He was the monster who had plagued her nightmares not so long ago.
"It's true," he said flatly. "All of it. Look at me, Sara. What do you see?"
"I see the man I love." She spoke the words confidently, but he saw the doubt shadowing her eyes.
Gabriel shook his head. "No, Sara, I'm not a man. I exist, but I don't live. I grow old, but I don't age. Face it. Accept it."
She looked at him warily, wondering why she wasn't more afraid. Sadness dragged at his features; his eyes were haunted, filled with more pain than a mere mortal could ever endure.
"Do you despise me now?" he asked.
"No."
"But you're afraid of me."
"A little."
"I won't hurt you,
cara
. Believe that. And if you can't believe my words, then look inside my mind and see the truth for yourself."
"Look inside your mind? What do you mean?"
"We share a bond, Sara. A blood bond. If you but try, you can read my
thoughts."
"Is that why I heard you calling to me?" Gabriel nodded, waiting for her to
take the next logical step.
"But I heard you before you took my blood." He nodded again, his hands clenching as he watched her try to fit the pieces together. "Have you taken my blood before?"
"No".
"You gave me yours." It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.
Time hung suspended while she waited for his answer.
"Yes."
"When I was burned," Sara said. "That's why I got better so fast. You gave me your blood, and it made me strong. It made me walk…"
"Yes."
"But that wasn't the first time, was it? You gave me your blood when I wanted to die because I thought I was never going to see you again. I remember now. You came to me in the night. I thought it was another dream, but it was real, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"You saved my life. Twice."
"And you have saved mine, miserable though it might be."
He yearned to hold her, to bury himself in her sweetness, but he could not. In spite of the blood bond between them, he felt as if a chasm as wide and deep as hell separated them.
She licked her lips, needing, dreading, to ask the question that had been gnawing at the corner of her mind.
"Am I a vampire now?"