“Still wishing we could fly?” he smirks slightly.
I grin at his uncanny ability to read my thoughts. “Maybe it’s one of my newfound Powers. I’ll have to try some time,” I say.
He laughs, relaxing slightly.
“What were you going to talk to me about? That night, that made you agitated?” I ask quietly.
As if expecting the question, he holds up a ring in his hand. He drops his knees, straightening his legs. I crawl forward over him, peering at it. I reach to take it from him as I sit on his lap. He lets me, still staring out of the window. It’s a ring made from Faerie Silver.
“I don’t understand. You had already given me one,” I say in confusion.
“It’s not a protection ring,” he says quietly.
An understanding creeps up on me, but I push it away not wanting to think about it. “No,” I say adamantly.
He looks at me then. “Yes. It took me months to procure. I wanted it made from Faerie Silver so that it would stand the test of time. I wanted to put it on you and have it last for eternity, never tarnished, never chipped, never replaced. Never taken off. I was agitated because I was about to make a commitment to you, one that I had never made before in over fifteen hundred years. I was nervous. Not because I didn’t want you, but because I wanted you so much it scared me. I wanted to be good enough for you. I wanted you to only see the good in me. The evil, the monster, I never wanted you to see it. It comes out, Aefre, I can’t help it. I didn’t want to come to you like that. Maybe I should have taken my chances,” he says sadly.
I stare at him dumbfounded. Never in a thousand years have I heard him talk like this, opening his heart up, being so vulnerable.
I lean forward and kiss him with so much emotion racing through me, my head is spinning. I just don’t know what to say or do.
“There’s more,” he says when I let him go.
What? More?
“Come with me,” he orders.
I climb off his lap and pocket the ring as he stands up. No way is he getting this back. He stalks off back in the direction of the right wing from Hell. I cringe, but I follow. He stops suddenly so I crash into him as he turns around. He grabs my arms to stop me from falling over.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Aefre, have you thought about what would happen if you tried to sire again now? Now that you are clearly more than your average Vampire,” he asks.
Erm, no, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“I’m not exactly in the market for another charge, my love. I have my hands full with the two that I’ve got,” I say wryly.
He chuckles. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” he says.
“Why? Do you think it wouldn’t go according to plan?” I ask, now worried.
“I don’t know. It is something we shall have to look into,” he says cryptically, turning back around.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I say, grabbing his arm. “I told you, I’m not in the market for another charge. Experiment or not.”
“Yes, I heard you,” he says, infuriating as ever. He grabs my hand, leading me back to a room a little way down the corridor from the empty room of doom.
He stops at the door and hesitates, wondering if he should open it or not. Again, he turns to me with a question, “Do you think it is possible to co-sire a Vampire?”
“I beg your pardon? What do you mean ‘co-sire’?” I ask, perplexed.
“Exactly how it sounds, Aefre,” he says, exasperated at my apparent denseness.
My tired brain trying to play catch up, thinks it over. “You mean two Vampires draining and feeding a human? Two lots of Vampire blood?”
“Yes,” he confirms.
I blink at him as if he has lost his mind. I stay silent. He blinks back at me clearly expecting an answer.
“I have no idea,” I say eventually as I have nothing else to say.