“My parents thought it was in my best interest,” he said, eyes downcast. “Here were wealthy people who could take care of me. Who wouldn’t let me starve. Who would love me.”
I gripped his hand. “They didn’t hurt you, did they? The vampires?”
“They never fed from me,” he said softly, “but the restraint was quite difficult. They loved me from afar. We never cuddled like most parents and children do. I was never kissed for getting high marks at school. But they did give me a great deal. They gave me a world-class education, trotting the globe in search of the finest things in life. They gave me companionship, which was what they always wanted. And they gave me this,” he said, gesturing to himself. “Eternal youth. Undeath.”
“You were never held?” I asked, running my hands up his arms.
“Not until you.”
I examined his face, searching for more than what he told me. “Do you love them or hate them?”
He sighed and paused for a long time. “I love that they saved my parents from a life of poverty, and saved me from painful starvation. I love the intellectual gifts they gave me, and the support I needed during my young life. But once they changed me when I was fifteen, that was when I began to hate them.”
I sat back and exhaled. I was fifteen when I started to hate my parents, too. My too-strict father and the milquetoast mother he scared away. Who sends a Christmas card every year in smaller and smaller writing that I worried she’d disappear one day. Not that I saw her.
“I’m sorry this subject matter is unsettling,” William said with a wave of his hands. “I shouldn’t have said so much.”
“No,” I protested. “It’s just reminding me that I haven’t talked to my mom in a long time.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“I just want ice cream,” I said, standing up and heading toward the kitchen. “But I do want to hear the rest of this story, so sit tight.”
A hefty carton of salted caramel and fudge ripple sat on the freezer shelf, begging me to drown my sorrows in cold sweetness. Maybe that was why I liked William so much, I mused. Cold and sweet like ice cream.
I pulled him down to the couch with me and prompted him to continue. “What did they do when you were fifteen?”
“They turned me into a killer. They were very traditional vampires, my parents. I always knew what was going on in the lower chambers of my house when I slept in my four-poster bed. I knew they fed off the humans who came inside and never left. And when they changed me, they taught me to do as they did—feed from the living, so I could continue to exist.”
“But you don’t do that now,” I replied. “You’re . . . progressive.”
He swirled his finger in the bowl and held a creamy finger to my mouth. “See how you opened for it? Because you craved that taste.”
I giggled.
“It’s not exactly the same, but close. I wanted it. For a while, I drank from humans because my thirst compelled me to. I wasn’t old enough or wise enough to learn self-restraint while feeding. And the humans they provided were untrained in vampire feedings. In my coven we train and feed from willing donors, like Harvey. They learn to stay still, make no sudden movements, and slow their breathing. When you’re a new vampire, you can break a neck as easily as a twig on a dry tree. You can siphon the life from a person before they even know what’s happening. I did what my nature told me to.”
I nodded. “I know teenagers. They aren’t very good with self-restraint. I get it.”