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than the sport of sex and play?”
    “Once, yes. A very long time ago.”
    “Will you tell me about it?” Jorge had never asked to know anything about another vampire. He hadn’t ever cared. He’d only wanted to exist peacefully among others of his kind. He didn’t want entanglements. Those only made departures more difficult. Despite what some believed, vampires did have feelings, did love and hate and care and hurt.
    But something told him that Roberto’s tale would help him understand Dane and what he was going through. Something in the way Roberto had spoken about the laws of nature told Jorge that he needed to hear it.
    The Italian sank heavily into a chair opposite Jorge. “I have never told anyone about this. There were many years I couldn’t even think about it.” He sighed and for a moment, Jorge wasn’t sure Roberto would say else. Finally, he did, though, in a voice thick with sadness and regret. “I was in love with a young couple when I was human. The three of us had a scandalous affair. I had just come into my father’s title and fortune and thought I was king of everything. I didn’t realize until several months into our relationship, that my lovers were not as I was. They were vampires. So beautiful, there were not then, nor are there now words to describe them. I didn’t care that they were unlike me. I didn’t care that they drank blood. I only wanted to be with them always.”
    “What happened?” Jorge prompted, completely caught up in Roberto’s story.
    “One day, as I watched him feed from her thigh, and witnessed the pleasure that ripped through her, I realized that I cared very much that they shared a bond that I was not part of. It made me angry and it hurt me. I was jealous. I begged them to turn me, to make me into a vampire. I begged and pleaded and they always said no. I felt betrayed by them. I felt they didn’t love me as I loved them. But what I didn’t know at the time was Elana had not been made willingly. They had been taken, used as pleasure toys by a Frenchman, and when he was done with them he turned her, thinking she would turn on William and kill him. She turned him instead of letting him kill himself for what had been done to her and his inability to stop it.”
    “There is more, yes?” And Jorge knew it wasn’t anything good. The raw pain in Roberto’s eyes was too much to witness and he had to look away.
    “I went out one morning while they were sleeping in my chamber. I had heard them speak of a vampire in a small town not far from my villa in Tuscany. I went in search of him and told him what I wanted. His price was wine to be infused with my blood since I was a count. I cared not. The turning made me incredibly weak. He drained so much from me for his experiment of wine and blood that I believed he intended to let me die instead of turning me as he’d promised he would. In the end, though, he did honor our agreement.”
    “And Elana and William?”
    “Were outraged. The vampire took me home where Elana and William nursed me until I could function on my own. I knew they would be angry at first, but thought they would understand in time why I had done it. They didn’t. They didn’t know why I would choose to be this way. I didn’t know about the birthday curse and the temptation it provided for a vampire unwillingly turned. I was only able to spend a few more weeks with them before Elana…” Roberto trailed off, his eyes taking on a faraway haze.
    Jorge wanted to ask him to continue, but wasn’t sure how. There was such sadness and despair in Roberto’s story that Jorge wasn’t even sure he wanted to know the ending which was so obviously unhappy. He’d started down this road, though, and selfishly, if there was something in Roberto’s past that could help Jorge with Dane, he would put them both through the finishing.
    “You can see why I’ve never talked about this,” Roberto said with a sad smile.
    “I am truly sorry.”
    “No. It is time