“I had gained the address of this party from your abuela, and so I went there. I thought just to check on you, perhaps watchfrom a distance to be sure you got home all right. But it was over when I got there. So I went to the home you shared withyour abuela, but there were no lights on. You were not home.”
“We had gone to the cantina where Emilita’s brother worked,” Ildaria whispered.
“Si,” he said sadly. “I learned that when I returned to your friend’s house. The parents thought you had all gone to Emilita’scousin’s house so that she could play her guitar for you while the parents stayed at her house. But her little sister knewthe secret and I eventually read it from her. Of course, then I hurried to the cantina. I intended to drag you out and giveyou hell for behaving so badly when your grandmother had trusted you. And for taking such risks when the Haitian soldierswere everywhere, raping our women and—” He paused abruptly when she flinched and then ducked his head, his hands clenching.But after a moment he continued.
“I heard you cry out, begging someone to stop as I approached the cantina. I followed the sound around to the alley in back. And when I saw those two men attacking you . . .” He shook his head, his expression tightening with remembered fury. “I have never been so enraged in my life . . . or so frightened. You could have been raped. You could have been killed. I could have lost you,” he said with horror.
Swallowing, he closed his eyes briefly and then continued. “I dragged the first one away from you, the one pinning your armsto the ground, and tossed him aside like the trash he was. I then grabbed the one who was actually on top of you. He had yourskirt pulled up, but was distracted trying to get his pants undone. He hadn’t even noticed his friend’s absence. Him, I bit,”he acknowledged grimly. “But I did not just feed from him, I tore his throat open on the spot for daring to touch you. Itshould have soothed me to have punished them so. My temper should have eased then. Instead, heat poured through me and myrage increased, becoming almost unbearable. I wanted to soothe you, but instead I attacked and berated you. And si, I threatenedyou with shameful violence.”
He looked away, shame on his face, and then said, “I wish I could say with certainty that I would not have used you that way,but I fear I would have. Fortunately, the rage in me was twisting me up so much that I stopped to grab you by the shouldersand shake you.”
Juan faced her again, his expression bleak. “The change in you was instantaneous. The weeping and pleading stopped at once. Rage suffused your face and you suddenly clamped down on me like a dog with a bone. It was a shock. The sudden change in you as well as the fact that there was anything out for you to bite. I hadn’t even realized I had been dislodged from my pants, I remember the pain, and trying to push you away without doing you damage, and then out of desperation I hit you and that ended it, though not the way I had been hoping for,” he said with a small, wry smile.
“You ran off then, leaving me rolling on the ground in agony. A few minutes later, Miguel, one of my men who patrolled thestreets, found me. He helped me to my feet and started to help me out of the alley when we heard a moan. The man who had beenpinning your arms, the one I had pulled from you first, he still lived. I told Miguel to bring him to me, that I would feedfrom him. He started toward him with me, but paused after a couple of steps and shook his head. He said he was no good forme. He was messed up from opium, mescal, and coca leaves.”
Ildaria stiffened, recalling an immortal warning her about that not long after she’d first turned. She’d stopped her frombiting a soldier Ildaria had lured behind a building. She’d seen her lead the man there and had followed to stop and warnher. She’d said that the soldier’s blood was no good. It was soaked with opium and mescal, and even cocaine from coca leaves.Most of the soldiers seemed to like the combination, but it was not a good mix for immortals. They had been known to go madfrom it. Besides, it would not help her. Her body would expend more blood removing the tainted blood and she would simplybe in more need.
Ildaria had been very careful after that, always reading prospective donors before feeding from them, to make sure they had none of those substances in them.
When she sighed and met Juan’s gaze, he nodded soberly. “That was the source of my uncontrollable rage. And, ultimately, yours.”
“Mine?” she asked with surprise, and then protested, “I was mortal then, and I’d consumed no blood.”
“Think back,” he said patiently. “When did your anger start? The anger that made you want to bite me?”
Ildaria frowned, recalling it well. As she’d told G.G., one minute she’d been weeping with confusion and fear and then Juanhad started to shake her and she’d suddenly been suffused with rage. “When you were shaking me.”
“When I touched your bare shoulders with my bare hands,” Juan pointed out gently. “We are life mates, mi amor. My passionstransferred to you in that moment.
