He shook his head. “I desire no mate. Perhaps—”

“Then return to the church.” He shook his head, but Maelona continued. “Surely there are those who would understand. You have so much to give.”

“The church I knew has changed. Perhaps… I will consider it.” He knew there were other priests who knew about his kind. He knew he could be of use, but Maelona’s despair haunted his thoughts. “If you would only stay—”

“I’m leaving tomorrow evening.” A dreamy look fell over her face. “I will walk toward the West, I think.”

Cold fear gripped his gut and his blood surged hot. “Do not let your ashes fly to the sea. At least stay in the mountains. I beg you.”

A trace of her old humor returned. “I do not think I will get as far as the water. The sun will take me before then.”

Carwyn choked back a cry and embraced her. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?” He knew, even as he asked, there was not. For seven years, she had mourned her sister’s death. She was weary of the constant struggle against bloodlust. Tired of hiding from the sun. Burdened by the loneliness of centuries. He knew Maelona would meet her end gladly.

“I have had over three hundred years of life, Carwyn. Three hundred years. Who could ask for more?”

I can.

Even as his heart broke at the thought of her death, Carwyn recognized the burning fire of survival had not lessened in him. Lost in the storm, he had dragged himself toward the smoke of Maelona’s fire twenty-seven years before, broken, freezing, and weak from days of wandering in the mountains. He had only one thought that urged him on.

He had wanted to live.

Carwyn had struggled for years over his desire. To live. To thrive. To drink up earthly life in all its rich majesty and splendor.

“Is it my own failing,” he asked, “that I do not want to join you?”

Maelona looked horrified. “No! This end is not for you.”

He blinked back tears and looked into her eyes. “Is it my own fear? Do I not have faith in God’s love? I would see Efa again. My two children taken to heaven as babes. Is it a failing that I am greedy for life?”

She stroked a hand through the shaggy auburn hair that covered his head before she rose to walk to her day chamber. She turned back at the dark hall. “You have many years to live. You possess a rare kind of joy, Carwyn. Treasure it and know that there are many paths to take. Someday, long in the future, we will meet again.”

Carwyn stared at her, knowing that by the time he rose the next night, she would be gone. It would be the last time he saw her in this world. He straightened his shoulders and stood, his presence filling the small room. Giving her, in her last moments, the confidence of his strength.

“I love you, Mam.”

Maelona closed her eyes, and a peaceful smile spread over her face. “I love you, too.”

County Wicklow, Ireland

December 1996

She rarely slept lying down. There was a shivering kind of weakness that enveloped her bones at the idea of being prone. She was indulged in her aunt’s home, surrounded by strange beings who never grew older; Brigid had come to understand the pleasant-faced monsters were both frightening and kind. Her Aunt Sinead, after whisking her away from her childhood home, never spoke of her mother or stepfather again.

Brigid had only faint memories of her aunt from her younger years. A visit for tea. A stuffed rabbit that had been put on a shelf out of her reach. Promises of visits in the country that Brigid knew her stepfather would never allow. After Brigid was taken from Dublin, no one mentioned her past life again. And Brigid did not ask. It was as if she had been reborn in the mountains the morning she woke curled into her aunt’s side.

But still, she could not rest peacefully.

So, the small girl with the dark hair and the haunted eyes took refuge in the library where the doctor worked. She curled into a corner by the fire, and the kind monster, whom she came to know as her protector, smiled at her and turned back to his books. He never approached her when she drifted in the warm room; he brushed away those who tried to take her to the bed she would not sleep in.

For the first year, she lived at Ioan and Deirdre’s home in the mountains. Brigid slept in a corner of the library couch, leaning upright in the small alcove, ready to wake at the slightest sense of alarm.

“What do you like to read?”

She looked up, blinking. The doctor was kneeling in front of her by the fire, and she wondered how he had managed to approach her without her senses alerting her to his presence.

“What am I allowed to read?”

Ioan, son of Carwyn, sat back on his heels and frowned a little. “Well, that’s an excellent question. I suppose I have things in the library that are not suitable for a child, so—”

“Like what?” She sat up straighter, not realizing she had interrupted one of the most powerful earth vampires in the Western world.

Ioan’s eyes twinkled with delight. “Oh, I have… dangerous books here.”

“What kind of dangerous books?” Brigid bit her lip and leaned forward.

“Well, there are tales of gods and rebellions. Nothing suitable for a little girl, I don’t suppose. There are some fairy tales—”

“I don’t like princess stories.”

He shrugged. “I’m not a fan of them, either. But I’m not talking about princesses.”

She scooted forward. “Well, I want to read them.”