Single White Vampire (Argeneau #3)(91)

Kate eyed him warily as he joined her. "Are you now going to age before my eyes and burst into flames?"

He gave her an annoyed look. "You know I don't burst into flames in the sunlight."

"I thought you didn't sleep in coffins either."

"I don't. Etienne does. He's… well, he's the weird one in the family."

"Thank you very much."

They both turned to stare at Etienne, who stood in the shadow of Luc's front entry with the door open.

"I'm going home. I'm sorry I scared you, Kate," he said solemnly. Then Luc's brother turned to him and added, "Please clear up the rigor mortis and necrophilia issue. It will bother me until you do."

Kate flushed, apparently embarrassed at her words having been overheard. Turning away from both of them, she moved to the side, apparently expecting Etienne to leave by way of the porch. When he closed the door but didn't walk past them, she glanced around, suspicion entering her gaze when she saw that he was gone. "What did he do? Turn into a bat and fly away?"

"No, of course he didn't," Lucern snapped. "He's gone through the house to the garage. He wants to avoid the sun."

"Hmmm." She didn't look as though she believed him, so Lucern just waited. A moment later, they both heard the muffled sound of a car starting; then Luc's garage door opened and Etienne's little sports car with its blackened windows pulled out. The garage door closed automatically behind it, and Etienne roared down the driveway and down the street.

Lucern waited a heartbeat, then took a deep breath and said, "Kate, I told you. It's nothing like that nonsense Bram Stoker made up. We are not related to, nor do we turn into bats. We don't sleep in coffins anymore—except for Etienne, who swears it helps him get in the mood to come up with new ideas for his games. I am not dead. You are not a necrophiliac. Rigor mortis does not cause my erections. You do."

She flushed at his last words, though whether with embarrassment or pleasure he didn't know. He suspected a little bit of both. Her posture became a little less stiff, her shoulders easing from their military stance, but she also sighed unhappily as she turned to him.

"You want me to believe you're just like everyone else?"

"I am," he assured her. Then, to be scrupulously honest, he had to add, "Well, other than the blood hunger and living hundreds of years and never aging or getting sick and…" He grimaced and stopped his honest admission right there. It wasn't going to win points with her.

"Normal men do not control other people's brains, Lucern," Kate pointed out.

"No. Well…" He sighed. "Look, it isn't some mystical power. Our infected blood makes our bodies more efficient. We're stronger and have more endurance than the usual person. I can lift things ten times heavier than the average man my size, run longer, hit harder. I've never really questioned my ability to read and control people's thoughts, but I would assume that's just another enhanced characteristic. They say humans don't use their entire brain. Well, it would appear my kind's blood makes sure that we do. Or, at least, we use more than the average person. It's probably a survival necessity like the teeth."

He allowed her to digest that, then added, "Does any of this really matter, Kate? The fact is that I am different in some ways. But I love you, Kate. With all my heart. Can't we get past this and find a way to be together? I'd like to marry you. Spend the next hundred years or so with you."

There! Now I've done it, Lucern thought. He'd fought his own dragons, put his pride and fear aside and told her how he felt. Now his heart and his future were in her hands. And for one moment he thought everything would be all right. Tears came to Kate's eyes and joy to her face, and she started to move toward him. Then the front door opened and the two cleaning women sidled out. They were eyeing Lucern as if he were a mad serial killer. Or a vampire.

Luc scowled at them for interrupting at such a critical moment, and they both flinched and slowed. Then one of them grabbed the other's wrist and blurted, "We quit! We've already called the company and told them how weird you are. They're canceling your contract. You'll have to find another company to clean this place."

Lucern sighed as they broke into a run, charging off his porch, down his sidewalk and to their car with the company logo, which they'd parked on the street. They left in a squeal of rubber that made him sigh again.

Forcing a crooked smile, Lucern turned back to Kate. "See, you have to marry me. I seem to scare off all the help."

Kate smiled slightly, then ducked her head to peer at her fingers. They were tangling and untangling themselves nervously. He felt the first arrow of fear hit him. "Kate?"

"I… How could we be together, Luc? You'll live another couple hundred years or so, never aging, and I—"

"I could turn you, like Etienne did Rachel and Lissianna did Greg," he interrupted quietly. He had thought she understood that. Apparently, she hadn't. She also hadn't said she loved him, he realized.

"Turn me?" she repeated, sounding distracted. "I'd be with you, live forever? Never age?"

Lucern was relieved to note that being with him had been the first thought, and not the living forever or not aging. For a lot of women, the last two points were temptation enough to fake love.