Page 151 of The Last Vampire
He cannot remember ever feeling this way about someone, not even when he was alive. It is as if she has broken a lifelong wintry curse.
Right as the temptation to march out and find her grows too great, he picks up on the first hint of her presence. Her scent is still far away, near the third tower, but she is on the move.
When at last she walks into the hall, his heart nearly constricts.
“Morning, Will,” she says, and he cannot deny the name sounds better than Rochester or Darcy.
“Morning, Lore.”
“Hi, Will,” says Salma, and he is astounded by how well she is handling everything.
“Hi, Salma. Where is Tiffany?”
“She’s not hungry,” says Lore. “We’re going to bring her a plate to the room.”
“It’s just taking her a moment to process, but she’ll be fine,” says Salma.
William considers going to check on Tiffany to make sure she is keeping quiet, but when Zach shows up, his concern eases.
“Where’s Tiff?” asks Zach straightaway.
“Period cramps,” says Salma, who has barely taken her eyes off William since she arrived.
“We didn’t need the specific diagnosis,” says Trevor. He looks from Salma to William, visibly annoyed by her newfound interest in him.
When the meal is over, Salma takes the food to Tiffany, while Williamand Lorena go out on the grounds. There is no one else in sight, and William inhales deeply to make certain they are alone.
“Can I ask you something?” asks Lorena as they follow a stone pathway along the grass.
“You just did.”
“Wow, you’re like a century late with that joke,” she says, a smile curling her lips. The winter sun makes her skin glow, and he wishes he had a camera to immortalize her in this moment.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a Stoker?” she asks.
William knew this question was coming. “I was not just hiding it from you,” he says. “I was hiding it from me, too.”
“Why?” she prods.
“I always knew I would be turned one day. In my family, it was custom to remain human until our late twenties or early thirties, during which time we were encouraged to reproduce as much as possible. Yet I refused all the proposals that were arranged for me, and that is how I developed a reputation for being arrogant and vain, not unlike your Mr. Darcy.”
They approach the statue of the horned demon, which offers some scattered shade, and she asks, “Were you just trying to resist doing what was expected of you?”
“No, it was not that.”
Lorena sits down on a patch of grass by the demon’s feet. “Then what?”
William folds down beside her and finds himself eye level with her golden gaze. It becomes harder to speak all of a sudden.
“I wanted to marry for…love.”
He does not know why he is embarrassed to admit it. Especially since Lorena does not look even close to laughing.
“How were you turned?” She asks the question slowly, like she is uncertain how it will be received.
Yet William is done keeping secrets from her. Last night proved to him irrefutably that she is the only being in the world he can truly trust.
“Grandsire visited my residence in Massachusetts Hall. The Legion’s attacks on Stoker vampires had reached my branch of the family, and he came to tell me our home had burned down, and my parents had gone into hiding. He said we could not wait any longer—he had to turn me.”
