“It’s true,” she said, her expression one of mingled surprise and horror. “I’m a vampire.”
“’Fraid so.”
She stared at him, trying to sort through her jumbled feelings, and not knowing where to start. First and foremost, vampire or not, she was glad to be alive. The thought of drinking blood was not repulsive; she had been taking Drake’s blood for years. It was the thought of hunting for prey that was disconcerting. She was a wife, a mother, a homemaker. Women like her didn’t go prowling the back alleys for sustenance. The very idea was ludicrous. And yet, there was no denying that the scent of Zack’s blood was tantalizing her senses to the exclusion of all else. A taste would be welcome, maybe even necessary, but it wasn’t driving her mad with need.
Zack regarded Elena thoughtfully. The red had faded from her eyes; he could no longer see her fangs.
“You’re not behaving like a new vampire,” he remarked. “I wonder . . .”
“What?”
“Well, you’ve been drinking Drake’s blood for how long? Twenty years? I’m thinking that you were practically a vampire already, and the reason you’re not going crazy with the need for blood is because you’ve got twenty years’ worth of vampire blood in your veins already. I’m thinking you might need to feed tonight to make the transformation complete, and then you’ll probably be like Katy, not entirely human, but not a full-fledged vampire, either.”
Elena frowned and he could see her turning what he had said over in her mind, examining it from every angle. And then she grinned at him. “I can live with that.”
“Good. So, let’s get you fed and head for home. I’m pretty sure your husband and your daughter are going crazy worrying about you. And I’m still on my honeymoon.”
“So that’s it?” Kaitlyn asked, glancing from her mother to Zack and back again. “You’re not like Zack and you’re not like Dad. You’re more like me?”
“So it would seem,” Elena said, smiling happily. “Zack taught me how to call prey to me and how to drink without damaging them. It was really very easy. And quite enjoyable. But, all things considered, I think I would rather have a cup of peppermint tea.”
Kaitlyn stared at her mother, then burst out laughing.
Drake frowned at Kaitlyn and Elena for several moments, and then he smiled.
Zack blew out a sigh. All was well with the Sherrad clan, he mused. Elena’s life had been saved. Kaitlyn’s was no longer in danger. The long-lost brother had returned to the fold and, unless Zack missed his guess, Stefan had developed quite a crush on Scherry, which, luckily, went both ways.
Liliana had returned to the Italian Fortress, declaring that she had had enough of Lake Tahoe. “Too many people,” she had complained. “Too much sunlight.”
Zack’s gaze lingered on Kaitlyn. His bride. She was beyond beautiful, he thought. Her cheeks were flushed with laughter, her eyes sparkling as she hugged her mother.
The only question now was where and how he and Kaitlyn would spend the rest of their lives. Would she want to return to Romania and live near her parents? Would she want to stay in Tahoe? Whatever she wanted was fine with him, as long as they were together. He had been alone for far too long, had spent a dozen lifetimes waiting for her.
And it had been worth the wait.
Epilogue
Kaitlyn stepped out of the shower. After wrapping her wet hair in a towel, she pulled on her favorite fluffy pink robe and padded barefooted into the living room. It was good to be in her own house again, to sleep in her own bed. Her parents had gone back to the Fortress a few days ago, with plans to return to Wolfram in the near future. Stefan’s romance with Scherry was heating up and he had decided to stay in Tahoe indefinitely. Kaitlyn had no doubt that there would soon be another wedding in the family.
Construction had started on the new nightclub.
Life was back to normal, and she was blissfully happy.
“What are you smiling about?” Zack asked as she curled up on the sofa beside him.
“Nothing much. You still owe me another wedding, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. How about waiting until our anniversary?”
“Don’t you want to marry me again?”
“Sure, but, let’s wait until the club’s built. We can have a grand opening, get married, and go away for a few weeks, anywhere you want to go.”
She pretended to think it over, then nodded. “All right.” She grinned at him. “Maybe we’ll have a double wedding.”
Zack chuckled. Stefan had fallen head over heels in love with Scherry. A blind man could see that.
“You’ve lived a really long time,” Kaitlyn remarked thoughtfully.
“Yeah.”
“Even longer than my dad.”
Zack nodded, wondering where this conversation was heading.
“Existing for such a long time, you must have seen everything, done everything. Do you ever get bored with it all?”
“From time to time, but, hey, who doesn’t?”
“That’s true.” She slipped her hand under his shirt and ran her fingertips over his chest and across the rockhard ridges in his abdomen. If he wasn’t a vampire, he would have made a great underwear model. “Zack?”
“Yes, love?”
“Six hundred years,” she murmured. “There must have been a lot of women in your life in that time.”
“One or two,” he admitted with a wicked grin.
“More like one or two hundred, I’ll bet,” she said with a pout.
“Kind of late in the game for you to be jealous, isn’t it?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe. Were there a lot of women?”
“Not near as many as you seem to think,” he said with a grin.
“Even one would be too many.” She knew it was unrealistic to think he had lived like a monk for six hundred years, but still, she hated the thought of him with another woman. Any woman.
“Darlin’, even if there were thousands—which there weren’t!—they’re all gone now.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m sorry, love, but, really, what brought this up?”
“I found an old copy of Romeo and Juliet when I was putting some of your things away. It was signed ‘I will always adore you, and no one else. Colette.’”
“Ah.” Not everything had been destroyed in the fire. The construction crew had discovered his casket, intact, along with the iron box he had kept in his lair.