Pulling her arm through his own he led her across the lovely meadow, his features tight with inner emotion.
“This is very difficult,” he at last admitted in low tones. “I do not wish to frighten you.”
“Then perhaps it would be best to keep your secrets for now,” Simone cowardly urged.
He flashed her a wry smile, as if perfectly aware of her unease. “No, it is too important that you trust me,” he said, slowly coming to a halt and grasping her shoulders so that she was forced to face him. “Simone, you must have guessed by now that I am not a mortal.”
She was shaking her head even before he finished, her stomach churning with fear.
“No, Gideon, I ...”
“I am a vampire.” He overrode her desperate words with a firm tone.
“What?” The world jerked to a halt as she regarded him in shock. He was mad. Or she was. “No. There is no such thing.”
His fingers tightened upon her shoulders as if sensing how close she was to fleeing in anguish.
“They are very real, although we left the world of humans nearly two centuries ago. Now we live in peace behind the Veil. Or at least we did until three renegades fled to London with the intention of destroying our world.”
Simone could barely comprehend his words.
A vampire.
They were the stuff of gothic novels and children’s nightmares. Horrifying monsters that sucked the blood of the unwary and lived in the shadows.
They were not handsome, elegant gentlemen who lived in London and stole the hearts of susceptible women.
“No,” she whispered in denial.
The dark eyes softened with regret as he regarded her barely restrained panic.
“Simone, there is no reason to fear me. I will not harm you.”
She shook her head at his calming words. “I do not believe you. You must be out of your wits.”
“Listen to me,” he urged softly. “The old gypsy is in fact the most powerful of vampires. Long ago she used an ancient artifact to produce the Veil. When the renegades escaped they came in search of the artifact to bring an end to the Veil and to use the power for their own glory. I was sent to halt them.”
Pressing a hand to her stomach she attempted to catch her elusive breath. It helped to assure herself that this was all a terrible dream and that soon she would awaken to discover she was safely tucked in her bed.
“Mr. Soltern?” she demanded in oddly thick tones.
He gave a slow nod of his head. “Yes, he is one of the traitors.”
Which, of course, meant that he was also a vampire. Simone shuddered in horror. The man had been in her home. He had touched her.
“And the artifact?”
“It was a Medallion that Nefri wisely divided and offered to three mortal women. She bound them with a spell that ensures that they cannot be taken by force, only freely given.”
Simone’s hand lifted to the gold amulet that lay against her skin.
“My necklace.”
“Yes.”
A heavy silence descended as Simone’s thoughts whirled through her head too swiftly to follow. It was all so impossible. Vampires and Medallions and strange veils. That did not even include gypsies and traitors.
No sane woman would believe it for a moment.
“You are a vampire,” she said in dull tones, as if saying the words would somehow waken her from the wretched dream.
“I fear so.”
“And yet you walk in the daylight.”
He grimaced at her accusation. “Unlike Tristan I have not taken of human life. The curse of the sun does not affect me.”
Against her will her hand shifted to cover her neck.
Tristan had taken human life? He had murdered helpless innocents?
Dear heavens, did he intend her to be a victim?
Was that why Gideon had warned her to beware?
Suddenly it was too much for Simone to accept.
Reasonable, sane women did not believe in vampires. Not even when she had seen a picture of Gideon that had been painted three hundred years before, or when he managed to heal wounds that should have put him in his grave.
And she was a reasonable, sane woman, she assured herself.
