Eleazar studied the cars rushing by from where he stood in Larissa’s apartment, holding the curtains back from the window. So many troubled thoughts below. He wanted to get her home to the farm where she would be safe.
“So, what year were you born?” his mate called from the bedroom as she plated her hair.
He laughed softly to himself. Her innocence had a way of making him incredibly self-conscious about his age. “I believe it was 1486, but time was not tracked as precisely then.”
“In Spain, correct?”
“Yes, outside the kingdom of Leon, in a village called Castilla.” He picked up a thin, red ribbon lying on the table and brought it to his nose. The fragrance of her hair clung to the satin band. He placed it in his pocket for safe keeping.
“Were you in Spain long?”
“No, I fled when the church changed to Catholicism.”
“You left for religious reasons?”
He grinned at her endless curiosity. “Over the course of five hundred years, beliefs tend to evolve. Back then, I had no faith, and I wasn’t about to have my principles forced.”
“Where did you go?” The rustle of material met his ears as he sensed her dressing.
“West, to the Caribbean Isles. I then spent some time in Germany, France, and lived for several decades in Switzerland. Eventually, I grew tired of worldly matters and no longer cared for wealth or possessions. Then, when the plague infested Europe and it had become harder to feed, I no longer cared if I lived or died.”
Her soft gasp made him smile. It had been a long time since anyone cared about him on a personal level. The rush of her startled worry reminded him to be more sensitive when choosing his words.
“But God had a different plan for me,” he explained. “Rumors of the New World promised a fresh start. I had knowledge of agriculture, and the ground was said to be fresh and rich for planting. We traveled here on the Charming Nancy.”
“We learned about that ship when we were children.”
“It’s an important part of The Order’s history, but I doubt your teachers portrayed it honestly. It’s not a memory I’d share with children.”
“Why?” Drawers opened and he imagined she was gathering the last of her personal effects.
His mind went back to the early seventeen hundreds when life was much simpler, but even an immortal’s life came with few guarantees. “We lost several of our group on the voyage. Rogue vampires ran wild about Europe during the plague, but our kind was not immune. There were only eleven mortal families aboard the ship for us to feed from. Once the plague broke out on the ship, even the rats below deck fell sick with the disease. The elderly and the young children were the weakest and the first to go.”
Eleazar did not favor the memories of so many families forced to bury their young at sea.
“In such close quarters, infection spread like wildfire. I warned against feeding from families who had taken ill. And, sometimes, even the apparently healthy could be secretly unwell. Mothers wept over their children, risking more spread of the deadly virus, and the passenger list dwindled.”
She appeared at the doorway of the bedroom, face pale and eyes wide. “That’s heartbreaking.”
He nodded. “Even some immortals fell ill.” He looked at her, already experiencing the intrinsic way his soul tethered to hers. “There’s nothing quite comparable—not even a mother’s grief—to that of an immortal losing a true called mate.”
Her fingers rushed to her lips as her breath hitched. The jolt of sadness stabbing into her heart chipped the ice around his own.
“The risk of death became so frightening we were all half-starved to death by the time the ship docked on the banks of Philadelphia. Untrusting of any mortal’s health, we drank only from wild animals and made a pilgrimage north.”
“To Lancaster.”
“Yes, to the farm.” Shaking away such melancholy memories, he fully looked at his mate and his heart kicked.
Dressed in an Amish gown, her white apron wrapped demurely about her and her hair braided close to her head, she made a picture of flawless beauty and made him feel every bit of his five hundred years.
“You’re lovely.”
She blushed, her fingers self-consciously touching her braids. “I’m afraid I misplaced my bonnet.”
He crossed the room and cupped her face in his palms, gently placing a kiss on her lips. “We shall find you a new one.”
Anxious to return home but also hesitant to leave the sanctuary of her apartment, he wondered how others’ knowledge of their mating would change things. Silus was a minor consequence. But there was also the situation regarding whatever lurked in the wilderness. As the bishop, his attention could not solely be on his mate’s comfort, but his heart and mind cared little about other pressing issues.
The moment he returned to the farm he would cease being an individual male who had just been blessed with his mate, and he’d return to exist as The Order’s bishop, acting as an adviser for The Council and the members of The Order. He sighed.