I shook my head. “I kill vampires nearly every day. It’s not like I sit down and have a conversation with them before I do it. Besides, vampires wouldn’t have had conversations with famous historical figures, they’d have eaten them.”
That made him laugh. He had a good laugh, all rumbly and deep. It made my thighs quiver and other places go all tingly.
“Morgan Bailey, you are one hell of a woman.” His fingers played with my hair.
“Why, thank you, kind sir.”
We were quiet, enjoying the moment. Stupid me, I had to go and shatter it. “Tell me about her.”
He didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about. He let out a sigh. “Her name was Lydia. At least, that’s the name I knew her by. She was over a thousand years old when I met her.
“When I left France after King Phillip had the Templar’s executed, I headed to Scotland. Scotland had been excommunicated from the Church, so it would be safe for me until such a time as I could reunite with those of my Brothers who survived the Purge.”
I couldn’t imagine how terrifying it must have been to be hunted like some kind of animal. “How did you make it out of France?”
“Lydia. The Key had shown me we needed to set up safe houses and that things were going to change, not in our favor. Many of our safe houses were run by Sunwalkers and Lydia was one of them. She took me in and hid me until she could smuggle me onto a ship bound for Scotland.” His voice held a distant, dreamy quality that sometimes happened when a person recounted old stories. I supposed most of his stories would be old.
“I convinced Lydia to come with me. If Phillip’s men found her, they would execute her, too.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Collaboration. Spite. Revenge. He didn’t need a reason, he was king.”
“So you got to Scotland all right, that’s obvious,” I prodded.
“Yes, we arrived safely and met up with others of my Brothers who had escaped. Nearly all of them were human.”
“Phillip killed the Sunwalkers first.” It wasn’t a question. I knew of men like King Phillip IV of France. Men whose overriding egos could only be assuaged by death and blood. He’d have had to kill the Sunwalkers to prove his manhood and soothe his bruised ego.
“Yes. Not a single one survived in France, and only a handful elsewhere. I realized I had to leave my brother knights if only to keep them safe. So Lydia and I and another female Sunwalker named Aicha hid out deep in the Highlands until memories faded and it was safe to live elsewhere.”
“What happened to them, Lydia and Aicha?” I wanted to know. I had a feeling Lydia especially had been more than just a friend.
“Aicha died in 1640, shortly after we arrived here in the New World.”
He’d come in 1640? Holy cow. “How did she die?”
“She died of starvation.” He didn’t say any more and he didn’t need to. I’d studied enough history to know just how many people had died from lack of food during the early colonization of North America. I could also see the guilt riding him. Guilt that he’d survived and she hadn’t. That he couldn’t die. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed mine back before continuing. “Lydia lived until twenty years ago. She was home alone with the amulet when Darroch’s men came. She couldn’t fight that many, so he killed her and took the Key. Slit her throat from ear to ear then cut out her heart to make sure she didn’t heal.”
Darroch was such a bastard. As if I needed any more proof of that. I was glad we’d handed him over to Trevor Daly and the government’s not-so-tender mercies.
“Were you and Lydia lovers?” I couldn’t help it. I had to know.
Jack grinned a little. “Jealous?”
I just shrugged. No way was he getting that confession out of me.
“At first,” he admitted. “But after a while we were just … I don’t know. We just were. I loved her, she was my family just as Aicha was, but we weren’t in love anymore. More like brother and sister, I guess.”
I suppose that happened when you lived with someone for nearly seven hundred years. “What did Darroch mean, blood calls to blood?”
Jack shook his head. He sat his mug down and then wrapped his arms around me. Damn, that felt really good. “I’m not sure. Maybe he meant that descendents of Atlantis could sense each other, or maybe he recognized that we are both Sunwalkers.”
I so wasn’t going to go there. I wasn’t ready yet to admit that I was a Sunwalker. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.
“Did you know the first time you met me? That I was like you? Part Atlantean, I mean.”