me? Bringing me out to the forest to tell ghost stories?”

He chuckled. “I’m not, as you put it, screwing with you. I’m telling you that there are phenomena science doesn’t understand, that fall outside of the realm of the ordinary, but which are nonetheless true, or based in truth. Vampirism is one of them.”

“And you think that, um, vampires are after you?” I said I’d listen to whatever he said; I didn’t say I’d believe it.

“Well,” he answered slowly, as if trying to decide how to deal with my skepticism, “that’s not all of it.”

“Wait…you’re not going to tell me that you’re a vampire? That you’re going to drink my blood?”

This time there was no laugh. “You’re half right. But I would never, ever drink your blood. I promise you that, Lacey. I swear it. You have nothing to fear from me.”

Half of me wanted to jump up and bolt away, to run as hard as I could from him. But another part of me was enthralled – there was something about his voice, the way he spoke, that captivated me like nothing ever had.

I tried to figure out if he was messing with my head or, worse, was actually crazy. Was it possible he truly believed he was a vampire? I knew there were delusional personality disorders, where people believed they were all manner of things: Jesus being one popular hallucination, a superhero another. Maybe he had a screw loose and honestly thought he was one of the undead?

My thoughts must have shown in my expression, because he laughed again, genuine humor evident in his grin.

“I know at this point you must think I’m nuts,” he said.

I tried to recall whether there was a preferred way of dealing with someone who thought they could fly or walk through walls or whatever. I drew a blank, so I opted for what passed for diplomacy with me.

“Okay, so why are you telling me this? Why tell me you’re a vampire, out here in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night?”

He folded his hands in his lap and gazed at me with such sadness my heart hurt looking into his eyes.

“Because you were one too.”

Chapter 19

I stared at Jared in honest astonishment. I tried to form words, but only managed to sputter incoherently as my mind grappled with what he’d said. A part of me wondered for an instant whether he was dangerous – maybe he brought me out here to serial kill me or something? But the look of complete openness in his eyes banished the thought.

“Come again?” I finally said.

“Your dream. You were once like me. A long time ago.”

“Are you saying I’m a vampire?” I asked, doing my best to sound calm and reasonable.

He grimaced. “Of course not.” He tried again. “But you were.”

“A vampire.” I exhaled quietly. “I see…”

“Hear me out. Remember, you promised.”

I tried to surreptitiously look around for anything I could use to defend myself, a rock or a branch.

He grinned again. “You don’t need a weapon, Lacey.”

I stared at him. “Is that you reading my mind?”

“Hardly. You’re just telegraphing your punches. You have a lousy poker face.”

“Oh.” I hesitated to ask, but couldn’t stop myself. “How do you know I was a vampire?”

He sighed. “Because in a past life, I knew you. In fact, I more than knew you.” He gave me a small smile. “We were in love, Lacey. We…we were to be married.” He paused and his face grew dark. “Until…your dream happened.”

A knot in my throat suddenly threatened to choke me, and my birthmark throbbed. “It happened?” I whispered.

He nodded sadly. “Yes. You were from one of the most powerful two clans of vampires in the world. I’m the equivalent of a prince in the other. My maker…the equivalent of my father, for lack of a better word…arranged with the royal court for us to wed, solidifying a union between the two factions. I loved you as I’ve never loved anything or anyone before, or since. And you loved me.”

All I could do was stare at him.

“But one of my clan, another royal, wanted you for his own. He petitioned the court to allow him to marry you, rather than me. When the court refused, he…he abducted you and…you know the rest from your dream.”

I blinked in the moonlight. “I thought vampires were immortal. Or that you had to drive a stake through their hearts, or hang garlic on them, or pour holy water or something?”

“All variations of legends, with a grain of truth to them. You can kill a new vampire with a stake, but the only way to kill a mature vampire is to cut out their heart with an obsidian knife and then burn it. We can be incapacitated in other ways – stunned, if you like – but a stake through the heart only would work on one that was just made – say within a year. It’s a garbling of the truth that made it into legend. Same with garlic and holy water and crosses. All useless to varying degrees against mature vampires, although our sense of smell is far greater than a human’s, and garlic really does stink to high heaven. I imagine the holy water and crosses were an attempt by village priests to reassure their flock. Or maybe they were inventions by fiction authors.”

“Is that why you speak so…why you’re so old-fashioned in the way you talk?”

“Am I? I thought I’d lost that. I’ll have to work on it more.”

I eyed him skeptically. “Prove it. Turn into a bat.”

He guffawed. “That’s another fairy tale. Although I confess I never saw the use of it, even if it were possible.”

“There has to be a way to prove it.”

“It’s hard to believe, I know. But in your heart, you must know the truth. You must be able to feel it.”

I didn’t know what to believe. He did look and sound sincere. Which was

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