bit . . . demanding. And given the fact that Ruby was the other vampire, I wondered how it affected her nature. My suspicions were confirmed when Valjean slid into the booth next to her and she immediately latched onto his arm, her lips tightly pursed, as if she wanted to bare her teeth at me.
As if sensing the mood at the table, Josh casually threw an arm over my shoulders and tugged me close, as if I’d been his date. Ruby immediately relaxed, her smile growing a bit more genuine. I realized in that moment that it wasn’t territory that was freaking Ruby out—it was Valjean. She was worried I’d try to snag him from her or something, and she was staking her claim early.
I would have been amused by it, except that a picture flashed in my mind of Josh going out with another woman, and I felt a distinct flash of rage. My fingers curled into my jeans and I bit the inside of my cheek to blot the thought from my mind.
“Thank you both for coming,” Josh said. “I appreciate you taking a bit of time out of your schedules to answer Marie’s questions.”
“We’re visiting Ruby’s family,” Valjean said easily. “Then it’s back off to Rome for us. I promised Ruby a sightseeing tour for her birthday.”
A flash of a smile crossed Ruby’s face, and I peered at her teeth. No sign of fangs. Of course not. Why did I think these new vampires would be different from any other vampire I’d seen or dated? The fangs were retractable. For feeding, they extended several inches, like snake fangs. Any other time, they remained hidden and looked like nothing more than sharp incisors.
“Rome sounds nice,” I said conversationally, not sure if I should jump right in with the vampire questions or if that would be rude. “Have either of you been before?”
“I visited when I was first turned,” Valjean said, steering the conversation to the subject I wanted to hear about the most. “I—”
“What was it like?” I blurted, wanting to keep the subject on vampires and turning. I felt desperate to get some answers. “Did it hurt?”
Not that it mattered. I was pretty sure it hurt less than dying. But now that it felt within my grasp, I was . . . curious.
“I don’t remember.” Valjean grimaced apologetically. “I was drunk and passed out when I was turned.”
“And I was dying from being shot in the back, so I’m no better with that answer,” Ruby offered. “All I remembered was that Michael put his mouth on my neck and the world was getting foggy.”
“Michael?” I asked curiously.
To my surprise, Valjean blushed bright red. Ruby gave him an amused, affectionate glance. “His vampire name is Valjean. Real name is Michael. Now that we’re together, we’re trying to switch to new names, but we keep forgetting to use them from time to time.”
“New names?” I asked politely. “Is that a thing with vampires?”
“It is. It’s best, since you’re essentially making a break from your old life. Most vampires change names every twenty years or so, in order to not arouse suspicion from the locals.” Valjean’s mouth gave a wry twist. “Vampire society has a lot of rules.”
“So you were dying, Ruby? Did you not want to be turned?”
“I hadn’t asked her,” Valjean said. “I thought maybe, after a few years together, I’d broach the question before she started to get all middle-aged and saggy—”
Ruby gave a mock gasp and curled her fingers into menacing claws. At least, they would have been menacing if her eyes hadn’t been gleaming with amusement. “Don’t make me come over there,” she purred.
My face flushed. This sounded less like teasing and more like foreplay. “So you didn’t have a chance to ask her?” I repeated, steering the conversation back on track. Josh’s hand rubbed between my shoulders, a comforting, subtle presence.
“There was no time,” Valjean said. “I took a risk and hoped that she wouldn’t be too mad at me.”
“Furious,” Ruby said in that soft, rumbling purr that was anything but angry.
Valjean flushed red again and Ruby looked pleased.
“There are lots of rules with vampires, you say?” I encouraged. These two were cute and all, but they weren’t giving me much that I didn’t already know.
They exchanged a look, then Ruby shook her head. “Can’t talk about it to non-vampires. We’ll get in trouble.”
“Trouble with who?”
After a moment, Valjean said, “Other vampires.”
“Let me guess. Another vampire rule?”
“Bingo.” Ruby grinned again, and I noticed that her canines were a bit elongated. “It’s kind of like the first rule of Fight Club and all that.”
“Gotcha. But what about family?” I asked, thinking of my father. I couldn’t exactly leave him behind. I was all the family he had left in the world.
“If your family is Alliance, it’s not a big deal,” Ruby said. “Since the secret is more or less out. Non-Alliance, however, are expected to remain out of the loop.”
I swallowed hard. So either way, my father was going to lose his daughter. “I see.”
Josh pulled me closer to him, as if sensing my distress. “What else should Marie know about dating a vampire?”
“Or turning,” I added quickly, ignoring Josh’s frown.
“Lots of things change when you turn,” Ruby began, pausing when the waiter arrived with glasses of water for her and Valjean. When he left, she delicately pushed the glass to one side, rejecting it. “I don’t know about Valjean, but my appetites have changed slightly. Shifters like a heavy meat diet, but I find that I can’t stomach any of that now. As a vampire, you don’t need food or drink, just blood. And you have to drink often.”
“Exactly how often?”
“Two to three times a day, just like human meals,” Valjean said easily. He picked up his glass and took a sip of the water, as if determined to prove a point. “And eventually your stomach resettles and you can tolerate most drinks. Ruby is new, so it still turns her stomach.”
Valjean offered Ruby his glass of water. She wrinkled her nose at him and pressed fingers to her lips, as if holding back bile.
“What about sunlight?”
“Killer,” Ruby said flatly. “You sleep through it most of the time, but if you get stuck out in it, you’re hosed.”
This was sounding more and more depressing. I felt a flare of anxiety but forced it aside. This was my best option, and I was going to run with it. “So what are the perks of being a vampire, then? You’ve mentioned some of the unpleasant things, but there has to be a plus side, right?”
Josh gave me another suspicious frown.
Valjean and Ruby exchanged a look. He grasped her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing the back of it in an achingly tender motion. “You get to spend eternity with the one you love. That’s worth everything, don’t you think?”
Except I wasn’t in this for love, just survival. I couldn’t picture any of the vampires I’d met so far affectionately kissing my hand like Valjean had Ruby’s, or tenderly pulling me to his side and teasing me like Josh did.
Did I want eternity with a cold man I didn’t love? I looked over at Josh, whose normally laughing eyes were somber, his mouth drawn into that thin line again. Or did I want what little time I had left with a man I was beginning to like a lot but couldn’t have?
A few weeks ago, my answer would have been instantaneous: I wanted eternity.
But now I wasn’t so sure. All I could think about was some stranger kissing my hand, like Valjean had kissed Ruby’s . . . and how much it would hurt Josh.
My stomach flipped a little. “Eternity sounds great to me,” I said in a fake enthusiastic voice.
“It beats dying,” Ruby said dryly.
That it did. Time to change the subject. “So, vampire dating pointers . . . ?”
