Page 87 of Kiss of the Vampire

“More than likely. And that’s why he was perturbed. He probably didn’t want them to know about you.”

“If he wanted me so badly, why did he abandon me for a year?”

Levka shrugged. “Maybe he was having trouble getting approval from his league. Or maybe he was having doubts about turning a prospective mate who could fight him. I truly believe he intended to have you even before he learned I wanted you though.”

“But what about the league business?”

“I will take you to the ends of the earth and live in sin with you if they don’t approve our mating.” Levka grinned.

“Oh, that’s just great.”

“We’ll go with you,” Stasio said.

Arman grunted. “Just when I thought we’d get back in the league’s good graces.”

Caitlin leaned back on the couch. “What if I don’t want to be like you?”

“You don’t have any choice, Caitlin.” Levka’s face wore a slightly worried frown. “Vlad drained too much of your blood. You were near death. I offered my blood to you freely, and without coercion you accepted.”

“If you don’t count saying you would sink to the bottom of the ocean and join Caitlin in death not coercion,” Arman said.

Levka gave him a scalding look, then faced Caitlin again. “Even if the league doesn’t officially approve, we’re blood-bonded. Forever, we’re tied to each other.”

“What if we don’t get along?”

“We’ll have our ups and downs. I’m certain of it.”

Caitlin looked at the zig-zag carpeting. “My foster parents will kill me.”

“We’ll have to wipe their minds of you. You’ll start over again.”

“In Dallas? If you have to work there, and Vlad will be bugging me still in Orlando, shouldn’t I move to Dallas?”

“She should,” Arman said, “if we’re ever to make it right with the league.”

“They have to approve of her being turned or we’re back to the beginning,” Ruric said.

Caitlin squeezed Levka’s hand. “Prove you’re a…a vampire. What special abilities do you have?”

Levka pointed to the wall behind the beds. “Listen. What do you hear?”

Closing her eyes, Caitlin listened.

A man was arguing with someone in the stateroom next door. “I told you we should have taken a flight to Hawaii. Rotten kids. They ought to string them up.”

Caitlin opened her eyes wide. “He must have raised his voice.”

“No. Our hearing and sense of smell is much greater than mortals’.”

“And you can vanish and reappear places.”

“Only places we’ve been before. We can’t enter a private dwelling unless we’re invited in.”

Caitlin slapped her legs. “Vlad! How did he come into my stateroom? I never invited him in. He shoved his way into the room, but he couldn’t have if he hadn’t been invited in, right?”

“He probably convinced Alicia to let him into your room earlier. As long as someone is easily brainwashed, the vampire can gain entrance. Which reminds me, unless it’s one of us or someone we say is all right, don’t invite them into the place, whatever happens.”

“I…I have to tell you something, too. I told you already, but I…I don’t think you were listening. Or believed me.”