Page 15 of Twilight Destiny

“Rosa?”

“Hmm?”

“What would you like to do this evening?”

She was tempted to ask him to kiss her again, but she suddenly realized they weren’t alone. Several people were staring at them. “I don’t care,” she said, glancing around. “Let’s just go.”

“It’s a nice night for a walk,” he said, taking her hand in his.

“It is,” she agreed, thinking she would have agreed to anything he wanted.

They strolled in silence until they reached the park where they sat on a wrought-iron bench beneath a tree.

“Tell me about yourself,” Rosa said, studying the large, brown hand that engulfed hers. “What were you before you were a vampire?”

“I was a slave in Rome.”

“A slave! That’s terrible.”

“You have no idea.” Forced to work from dawn to dark seven days a week, the constant threat of the lash, cruel overseers, never enough to eat. “My mother was Greek. She was captured by the Romans when she was a young girl and forced into slavery. I have no idea who my father was. I didn’t care much for being someone else’s property, so one night I killed my master and ran away.

“They caught me, of course, whipped me until I was unconscious, and left me for dead. I didn’t die, though. I wandered around aimlessly for a couple of years, always afraid they’d find me again.

“One night I tried to rob a man to get enough money to buy something to eat.” He laughed a harsh, bitter, laugh. “Turned out he was a vampire. A very old one. He took me to his lair, locked me in a cage, and fed on me. I’m not sure how long he kept me locked up. I lost track of time after a while.”

He paused at the look of horror on her face. “Should I go on?”

At her nod, he said, “It wasn’t all bad. Drakos had been a scholar before he was turned and he taught me how to read and write and cipher. When he traveled to foreign lands, he took me with him. I learned to speak a couple of different languages along the way.

“He was a wealthy man, vain about his appearance. He dressed well, and he bought me a whole new wardrobe so that when he took me out in public, my appearance wouldn’t shame him. We were on our way home from the opera one night when he was attacked and seriously injured. We barely made it back to his lair. He lost a lot of blood on the way home. He locked me up and then materialized inside my cage and drank from me. Drank until I was on the brink of death. He didn’t let me die, though. He turned me, instead. And I hated him for it. He said he was sorry when he was himself again, that he hadn’t meant to do it, but I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t want an apology, I wanted my life back. I would have killed him if I could. He taught me what it meant to be a vampire, how to survive. Eventually, he realized I was never going to forgive him, and he let me go. I never saw him again.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She died a few years before I ran away.”

Rosa sat there, stunned by what he’d told her. And then she frowned. “Jake Kincaid doesn’t sound like a Greek name.”

“No. My mother named me Alexandru. I’ve changed it over the years. I used Kincaid during my cowboy period and it stuck with me.”

That explained the jeans and boots he favored, and then she grinned, thinking she felt sorry for any horse that had had to carry him. “Where did you meet Saintcrow?”

“In Mexico. We both had our eye on a pretty littlesenoritaat the time.” Kincaid smiled with the memory. “He was a little older and stronger, but I wouldn’t back down. While we were fighting over her, figurately speaking, her father married her off to some wealthy landowner. We’ve been friends ever since.”

A charming story, Rosa thought. It made them both seem more human, somehow.

Saintcrow was waiting for her when she returned to his house. He quirked one brow when he saw her. “Just can’t stay away from him, can you?”

Rosa dropped her handbag on a side table, kicked off her shoes, and settled into a corner of the sofa. “I like him.” She looked up at Saintcrow. “Seems you like him, too.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He told me how you met.”

“Uh-huh.”

She shrugged. “Since you didn’t kill him, you must like him.”

With a shake of his head, Saintcrow sat at the other end of the sofa, his long legs stretched out in front of him. “I don’t kill everyone I meet,” he said dryly.