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“Not the serum, surely!” Ana added, biting her nails in worry.

“Oh no, that can’t be!” Eduardo exclaimed.

“We don’t know,” Nathan finally managed to get a word in.

Lying bastard, Nathan knew.

“How and are there any others?” Pari questioned through red-rimmed eyes.

Pari was in a dreadful state, with Emil faring no differently. Having our grandchildren helped, but it didn’t ease the sorrow of losing Cleo.

“There is no more, but how Christa became one of us is a mystery,” Nathan replied.

Nathan looked at Christa and smiled reassuringly. Christa took it in her stride.

“Did you have the illness?” Inka asked.

“I believed I was near death, thinking I had passed away, yet here I am. I’m unsure of why or how, but here I am.”

Christa shrugged bony shoulders as I continued to glare at Nathan, who completely ignored me and refused to look in my direction.

Go on,Nathan, I silently goaded.Tell the others that you were lovers.

Nathan had definitely figured out how to transfer this curse. How, I couldn’t even begin to imagine, but he had. Christa must have been pretty hot for Nathan to risk it, as he was a vain bastard. Maybe Nathan just wanted the eternal gratitude, but I knew he’d changed Christa on purpose.

Nathan sneaked out as the others tentatively welcomed Christa and made her feel welcome. They also tried to prise what had happened to make her a Vam’pir, but she wouldn’t tell.

Determined to gain an answer, I stalked out after Nathan.

“I can’t quite explain how I stumbled across the technique, but I shall try,” Nathan said without turning to face me. “I visited Christa every night and watched her slowly dying. The cure the medics discovered didn’t help, it just hastened the disease. There had been one or two cases like Christa’s, but I let them die. Christa, I wanted to live, even if it was this existence.”

“Christa makes you feel that good?”

Nathan wasn’t in love with her. Love was an entity Nathan couldn’t understand.

“Oh yes. Christa is a brilliant and inventive lover, and I wanted her all to myself. Christa gives me as much pleasure as I suppose anyone can. I can’t say that I’m in love, but the thought of Christa dying turned my stomach, hence the experiment.”

“How?”

“Well, I realised that due to our supernatural bodies, Vam’pirs could not get a disease. I began to wonder why. I still can’t tell you what led me to the conclusion. But it occurred that if I drank Christa’s blood and returned it to her, the antibodies in our system might help. So, I did it.”

“Just like that?” I asked, interested despite myself.

“Yes. Tonight, Christa was on her deathbed, and she wouldn’t last another night. I gathered Christa into my arms and bit into the jugular vein in her neck. Jacques, the ecstasy of drinking live blood, I can’t describe. I struggled to keep my mind focused, and only just succeeded.

“For some reason, I heard Christa’s heart slowing, and I opened my wrist and pushed her mouth onto it. The blood dripped into Christa’s mouth, and at first, there was nothing, and suddenly Christa fastened on. She held me captive as shedrank deeply. Indescribable pain coexisted with pleasure. It felt like experiencing repeated orgasms.”

“Really?”

“Yes, then, before my eyes, Christa changed. The colour came back into her cheeks, and she seemed to grow healthy. The only thing was,” Nathan paused, grimacing.

“Go on,” I encouraged him.

“Well, Christa died like we did.”

“Just like what happened to us?”

“Yep, just as we passed, so did Christa, leaky body fluids and everything. But then returned to life. But now I have someone eternally grateful to me for their life. Plus, Christa’s an exciting lover…” Nathan paused, flushed and looked at me.