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needed elsewhere and won’t be available for some time.”
    “Doing what?”
    “That I can’t tell you.” There was nothing but sincerity in her face, so I believed her. “Do you have any questions, or would you like me to simply start explaining things?”
    I had one very important question, then she could tell me whatever she pleased. “Is it possible to live like this and never kill anyone?”
    She laughed lightly, all bells again. I liked her laugh much better than her sister’s. “Oh, Kassandra, I think you and I are going to get along quite well.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Well, I’ve never had much stomach for killing, either. Unlike my sister. Let me think about the best way to explain all this.” She was quiet for a moment, collecting her thoughts while mine went wild. “Everyone is different,” she said after what seemed like forever to me. “Just like humans, we all have very unique personalities. After all, we were all once human ourselves. The basics don’t really change. At least in my experience. Of course, the cravings and needs of our new bodies do demand some changes. To answer your question, I suppose it is possible to drink what is needed and never kill. I myself have only drained a handful of humans in my hundred years or so of this life. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve met a vampire who’s never killed at least once when feeding. Most think I’m rather soft.”
    “But it is possible.”
    “Strictly speaking, I don’t see why not.”
    I was elated. Free. I didn’t have to worry about killing anyone. It felt like a huge weight, one about the size of the Statue of Liberty, had been taken off my shoulders. I wanted to get up and dance around the room again.
    “But,” Millie said, stopping my mental happy-dance dead in its tracks. “There are considerations other than simple feeding.”
    Dammit . That could ruin everything. “Like what?” I asked, even though I didn’t think I wanted to know the answer.
    “The bloodlust.”
    Rhys had mentioned that before. “Like in the sun? Rhys already told me about that.”
    “Yes, and no.” She shifted so she faced me more directly. “The sun strengthens the bloodlust, but you can learn to overcome that. However, there is another bloodlust, one that can’t be so easily controlled.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We are hunters, Kassandra. Predators. Killers, even, though I like the term as much as you do, I think. Regardless, we can’t change the basic nature of our species. Hunting must be done, or else the instinct becomes bottled up until it bursts out in a most uncontrollable manner. Like all animals, all creatures, we must be allowed to do what is in our nature to do.”
    “You mean like a hand-fed animal attacking a zookeeper.” My happy-dance writhed in death-throes in my head. There didn’t seem to be much hope for its resurrection.
    “Yes. That is an accurate analogy.”
    “So, what about it? Are you telling me I’ll have to kill at some point? Because if that’s the case then you can just—”
    “Calm down. Let me finish.” She took my hand gently in her own, lowering it from where I had begun to make the universal gesture for cutting my throat. I thought maybe I heard a small blip on the heart monitor of my happy-dance, but didn’t get my hopes up. “The bloodlust is strong, stronger in some than in others. Everyone learns to keep theirs in check in their own way. But it’s more a need for the hunt, the chase, than the kill. For my sister, she embraces the lust. It keeps her mind intact if she simply gives in, and she was always more open to the idea than I was, anyway. For me, while I don’t enjoy killing as much as she does, I find that going out hunting once a month keeps the craving at bay.”
    “Maybe because you like it less you need to give in less?”
    She seemed to want to console me. I wondered what my expression looked like. I felt like being sick. “That seems a valid argument.”
    “So maybe I can