“Until you ran,” G.G. said.
“Si.” Ildaria picked up her own water and took a long gulp, but it didn’t really quench her thirst any better than the hotchocolate had. Realization striking, she rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and moved to the refrigerator to retrieve abag of blood.
G.G. smiled faintly as he watched her pop it to her fangs. He was used to immortals feeding in front of him. Clients mightdrink it from glasses at the Night Club, but his mother and father were both immortal and would drink from bags at home asshe was doing, so she wasn’t surprised he seemed more amused than anything.
“All this talk of blood made you hungry, did it?” he teased.
Unable to talk with the bag at her mouth, Ildaria just shrugged. But the truth was she’d been so distracted with their talkthat she’d made the rookie mistake of missing the signs that she needed blood. Seriously, how stupid was that? She could haveaccidentally bit G.G.
“So you didn’t go see your abuela right away because you needed to feed,” G.G. said when the bag had emptied and she toreit from her fangs.
Nodding, Ildaria tossed the bag in the garbage and then leaned against the counter. “Unfortunately, when I ran from the plantation, I used immortal speed, which means using blood that was already low,” she explained. “By the time I stopped I was well into the stomach eating itself phase and verging on the acid in the organs stage.”
She grimaced at the memory. “That meant I couldn’t risk going anywhere there were a lot of people. The smell of their bloodwould have been overwhelming and I might have just attacked someone. I needed to find someone on their own. So, I went downto the waterside, hoping to find a fisherman on their own, or someone walking the beach in the moonlight. Tourism wasn’t athing in the area back then,” she added. “This was 1826. We were under Haitian occupation, which had caused a lot of upheaval,but it was still safer to walk around at night than it would be now. Well, mostly,” she added to be honest, because the soldiershad been a problem. Haiti hadn’t been able to provision their soldiers properly, so the men were stealing the food and suppliesthey needed locally. They had called it commandeering or confiscating, but it was stealing.
Food and supplies weren’t all that the soldiers had taken without permission. A lot of half-Haitian babies had been born duringthat period. Though Ildaria had been relatively ignorant of all that at the time. She and her grandmother had been left alone.She supposed that had something to do with Señorita Ana. She had always protected her people.
Ildaria turned to glance at the stove’s clock and then opened the door to check the muffins. Deciding they needed another couple of minutes, she closed the door and continued. “I did eventually find someone on their own, but it took a while, and really I needed more blood than one donor could safely supply. Fortunately, that first man eased my need enough that I thought I could safely be around crowds again, so I decided to head back toward my abuela’s and look for someone to feed from on the way. Still, by the time I neared my abuela’s home, it was more than an hour since I’d left Señorita Ana’s.”
She paused briefly, as she remembered the moment her abuela’s home had come into view. “Juan and Ana were there. They werearguing in front of my abuela’s house. I couldn’t hear it all, but caught enough to gather that Señorita Ana wanted to questionme. Juan wanted her to go home and leave me to him. I was his ‘problem now,’ he said.”
She grimaced. “Eventually, Señorita Ana was persuaded to leave and let him deal with me and Juan went into my abuela’s home.”
Ildaria bit her lip as she recalled her fear in that moment. She’d been terrified for her abuela, afraid Juan would take out his rage over her having unmanned him on the dear old woman. But he hadn’t stayed very long. “Juan was only inside for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. When he came out, my abuela accompanied him. They walked to his horse chatting like they were old friends. And she was smiling happily, as if he had gifted her with something wonderful. She was also promising Juan she would contact him the moment I returned home.”
“Mind control?” G.G. asked at once.
“I don’t know,” Ildaria breathed unhappily. “Maybe, or maybe he just lied and said he was concerned for my well-being andwished to help. She had no idea he was the immortal who had attacked and caused my turn,” she pointed out. “But it didn’tmatter. Juan left four men to watch my abuela’s home in case I returned. They were immortals, Enforcers, I suspect. Come morning,six more immortals came, four to replace the men guarding the house, and two who followed at a distance when my abuela walkedto work and back. I couldn’t approach her,” she said with remembered helplessness and frustration.
“In the end, I had to give up. I wrote a note to tell her that I remembered what had happened and who my attacker was. ThatI hurt my attacker while defending myself and accidentally turned myself in the process. I told her I loved her so very much,but feared retribution and had to flee, both to keep her safe as well as for my own safety. I then gave the note to an oldfriend of my abuela’s to give to her.”
“And never saw her again,” G.G. said, sadness in his tone.
Feeling tears prick the backs of her eyes, Ildaria turned away to grab the tea towel she’d left folded neatly on the counter. Using it as a makeshift oven mitt, she opened the oven and pulled out the muffins. They were golden brown and
