Ildaria frowned and then glanced to Lucian. He nodded silently.
“I have regretted that night for the last two hundred years, mi amor,” Juan continued. “I have searched for you. I have had my men search for you. Even your abuela tried to help.”
Ildaria’s head shot back around, her eyes finding his. “What?”
He hesitated and then said, “The moment I healed and recovered from my injury, I started looking for you. With no luck. Youwere not at your abuela’s and neither was she.”
“She stayed with me at the plantation for the first few weeks,” Ildaria murmured.
“Si.” He nodded. “I learned that from a message Ana sent me. It was waiting for me at home when I returned from searchingfor you one night, but I was tired and did not bother with it until morning. I could not believe it when I read that she hadthe daughter of her cook, with her. That the girl had been turned, but had no memory of how or by whom despite weeks of healing,and she felt the Council needed to intercede.”
He grinned. “I thought God had answered my prayers. Not only were you found, but you did not remember those terrible minutes in the alley; neither the attack by the soldiers, nor by me. It seemed a blessing. I rushed over at once, making plans along the way. You were still too young to claim, but at least I need not worry about your coming to harm before I could claim you. I would see to it that you and your abuela were well taken care of until you were ready to be my life mate. I would see you just this once to assure myself you were well, and then would send you away with your abuela so that I would not be tempted to try to see you until you were at least eighteen. In the meantime, I would keep myself distracted by building you the most beautiful home, and filling it with everything you might like. And I would plan the wedding too.
“I greeted Ana joyfully when I got there, and told her to take me to you. But you were gone when we got to your room. Anasent servants looking for you. A maid came back several minutes later saying one of the men said you had left. He thoughtyou had gone for a walk. But I feared you may have seen me, and that it had brought your memories back to you. I feared youhad fled when you remembered and realized Ana was my daughter.”
“Si,” was all Ildaria said. It was all she needed to say.
He sighed unhappily, but continued. “And so I started the very long search for you. First I went to your abuela, hoping youmight have returned to her, but you had not. I stayed a while to see if you would come. Your abuela served me tea, and I toldher that you were my life mate. She was very pleased at the news. She was happy that you would be settled and with a man sheconsidered to be honorable and strong and able to protect you down through the ages.” His voice turned bitter at the end,but then he cleared his throat and continued. “I felt like a fraud under her benign eye, and I told her what had happened.”
Pausing, he grimaced and said, “I did not intend to, but your abuela . . .” Expression sincere, he said, “She was a very special woman. There was nothing but kindness in her heart and soul. She was most understanding, and assured me all would be well. I would find you and all would be as it should.” He sighed. “I enjoyed my visits with her. I went to see her two or three times a week, and we talked of little but you and her hopes for you. Neither of us had any idea you would hide so well or for so long.”
“You had tea with her two or three times a week?” Ildaria asked with disbelief.
“Si. I enjoyed her company. It was soothing. And I missed her terribly when she passed. I grieved. I do not often grieve formortals. I am sorry you missed her death and funeral.”
“I was there,” she told him, recalling watching him at the graveside. “I had to stay at a distance, but I saw.”
“Why?” he asked with bewilderment. “Why did you not simply come and join us?”
“Because your men were everywhere, hunting me.”
“They would not have harmed you. They had orders not to harm you,” he assured her.
“Well, I didn’t know that. I thought you—” Ildaria stopped abruptly and scowled at him. She still couldn’t believe that hehadn’t wanted to hurt her for what she had done to him. Or that he wasn’t the monster in her story. Mouth twisting, she asked,“What of your jacking up the price of blood to force immortals along the shore off their property so you could have it?”
“It is not what you think,” he said, and explained, “Three times in the last twenty years my men almost caught you near theshoreline.”
“Si, and each time I managed to escape,” she snapped triumphantly.
“Si,” he agreed, sounding a bit snappish himself for the first time. “But only because they were under strict orders not to harm you. My men took grievous wounds trying not to harm you while trying to capture you.”
Ildaria straightened, offended at the suggestion that her escaping had been purely because he’d refused to allow his men tohurt her. She was a good fighter, dammit.
“But were you good enough to
