Five hundred and thirteen years. It didn’t seem possible that so many centuries had passed, or that he had changed in so many ways and yet remained ever the same.

He had been born in the summer of 1459 in a small town off the English coast, a town that no longer existed. He had grown up on a farm, the youngest child in a family of four girls and five boys. His brothers and sisters had all married and left home by the time he was seventeen and he alone had remained to help his father work the farm. At the age of twenty-four, he had married the girl on the neighboring farm. It hadn’t been a love match, though Verity had been a sweet girl, biddable and kind-hearted. Though he had married her to please his parents, he hadn’t been completely unhappy with his bride. She had been a pretty thing, with expressive brown eyes and a shy smile. Their marriage had been amicable if not exciting. In time, Verity had grown to love him and he had learned to care and appreciate her for the good woman she was. They had been married eight years and had long since given up any hope of having children when Verity told him she was pregnant. Seven months later, she had died in childbirth and the babe with her. He had mourned her death and the loss of his child, mourned the fact that he had never loved her.

He had immersed himself in work after the death of his wife and child. His mother and father had assured him that the grief would pass, that he would marry again. He never knew if they were right or wrong. Three years after Verity’s death, Rosalyn had come to town and changed his life forever.

She had been a wild, wanton woman, the perfect antidote for the lethargy that had plagued him. She had teased and flirted shamelessly, and one night under a dark moon she had taken him into the shadows beyond the town and seduced him. When he had offered to marry her, she laughed in his face.

“You are so young,” she had exclaimed. “And so tasty.” She had kissed him again, arousing him to fever pitch once more, and then she sank her fangs into his throat.

Though he was taller and broader and outweighed her by a good sixty pounds, he had been helpless to resist her. He had felt himself growing weak, weaker, knew he was on the brink of death. When she lifted her head and looked down at him, her lips had been stained with his blood.

“Why?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

She shrugged, and then, to his astonishment, she slit her wrist with a fingernail. Drops of dark red bubbled from the wound. He recoiled when she offered him her arm.

“I have drained you to the point of death,” she said. “Now you must drink or die. The choice is yours.”

Feeling as though he might float away on the next breeze, he shook his head. “No.”

“Drink,” she coaxed. “Someday you will thank me.”

As he grew weaker, his fear of dying overcame his revulsion. With a low growl, he grabbed her arm.

“I’ll never thank you,” he vowed, “not if I live to be a hundred.”

She laughed softly as he pressed her wrist to his lips.

He drank like a man who had been denied nourishment for days, drank until she had jerked her wrist away. And then, to his amazement, she lifted him into her arms as if he weighed no more than a child, carried him deep into a cave, and then vanished from his sight. Confused and afraid of what had happened between them, he struggled to his feet. He had only taken a few steps when pain ripped through his body. Certain she had left him in the cave to die, he curled into a ball, moaning softly as the world around him went dark, sucking him down into the blackness of oblivion.

When he woke the following night, he was a newly made vampire with the whole of the world and eternity stretching before him. They were exciting times. Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world, John Smith founded Jamestown, Gutenberg invented a printing press with movable type, the Pilgrims came to America. And he came with them, a new vampire in a new world.

He had enjoyed his existence but never more so than now. After all these years, years that he owed to Rosalyn, he had fallen in love. And for that, he would ever be grateful.

Looking up at the starry sky, he murmured, “You were right, Rosalyn. Wherever you are, I thank you.”

And then he returned to the house that was now a home because Shannah was waiting for him there.

Chapter Eighteen

Shannah woke at dusk to find Ronan standing in front of her bedroom window, looking out.

Sitting up, she admired the width of his shoulders, his tight buns, the snug fit of his jeans, the long line of his legs. He really was a perfect specimen, the kind of man that graced the covers of magazines likeGQ and appeared on posters in clothing stores.

His soft chuckle filled the silence. “Do you like what you see?”

“How did you know I was looking?”

“I can feel your gaze on my back.” He turned to face her, his arms crossed over his chest. “And other places.”

“Oh.” She knew she was blushing but she couldn’t help it. Drat the man, she had blushed more since she met him than she had in her whole life.

“So,” he said, “now that you’re officially moved in, what would you think about keeping the same hours I do?”

“I don’t suppose you could write during the day?”

“No. I’m afraid I’m too old and set in my ways to change now.”

She could understand that, she supposed. After all, he was a successful author, and as such, he was entitled to his quirks.

“Shannah?”

“I’m willing to try.”

“You won’t mind sleeping during the day?”

“I don’t know. I guess not.” Truth be told, she had been going to bed later and getting up later since the first night she came here.

Sitting up, she stretched her arms over her head. Still, it would be odd, getting up when the sun went to bed, sleeping while the sun was up, but it would be worth it if it meant spending more time with Ronan.

“So, what hours do you keep, exactly?”

“I usually get up an hour or two before sundown and stay up until dawn.”

“You sleep all day?”

“Writing takes a lot out of me.” He grinned at her. “Of course, since you came along, I haven’t done a whole lot of writing.”

Shannah chewed on her thumbnail. His hours didn’t sound so bad, although she wasn’t sure she could sleep that long. Of course, she wouldn’t have to keep his exact hours.

“You don’t have to adjust your schedule to mine if you’d rather not,” he said. “We can go on as we are.”

“No, that’s okay. We can try it for a while and see how it works out,” she said. “Since we’ll be keeping the same hours, does that mean we’ll be eating our meals together now?”

Damn, why hadn’t he thought of that? He could always sit across from her and plant the idea in her mind that he had shared the meal with her. It would probably be the easiest solution.

“I usually only eat one meal a day,” he said.

“And you like to eat alone,” she said. “I know.”

He nodded.

“Well, we’ll work something out,” she said brightly. “So, what hours do you write?”

“Until you came along, I usually wrote most of the night.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t want to interfere with your work…”

“Ah, but I want you to. Writing is a lonely business.”

“But you have to keep writing. Think of all those fans waiting for your next book! I’ll just read or watch TV when you’re working.” Of course, that wouldn’t give them much time together.

Crossing the floor, he took her by the hand and drew her out of bed and into his arms. “Good evening, love.”

She smiled up at him, then closed her eyes as he lowered his head and claimed a kiss.

Yes, she thought dreamily, she could get used to this.

“Why don’t you get dressed and have dinner,” he suggested, “and then, if you like, we can go out.”

“All right.”

“Where would you like to go?”

“The movies? I haven’t been in ages.”

“The movies it is.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll even buy you a box of popcorn.”

They left for the theater at 6:30. It was odd, Ronan thought, sitting with a girl at the movies, holding hands like any other mortal couple. He tried to shut out the cacophony of beating hearts, the myriad odors that rose from the people around him, the smell of popcorn, soda, candy, nachos and cheese, the whispers and giggles, the scent of lust emanating from the teenage boy in the next row, his own growing desire for the woman beside him.

With so many distractions, it was little wonder that he paid scant attention to what was happening on the screen.

He was relieved when the movie was over. Outside, he drew in a deep breath. Due to his preternatural senses, he was ever aware of the hundreds of scents and sounds that surrounded him, but out here, in the open, they were less intense.

“I need to check my post office box,” he remarked as they walked across the street to the parking lot. “I haven’t picked up my mail in weeks.”

“I used to follow you there sometimes,” she confessed.

“I know.”

“I don’t believe you! How could you know? I was always careful to stay out of sight.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, love, but you weren’t nearly as sneaky as you thought.”

“Well,” she muttered with mock despair, “so much for my James Bond impersonation.”

Ronan laughed, thinking how good it felt. Laughter was something that had been missing from his life for a long time.

They pulled up in front of the post office a few minutes later. “Do you want to wait in the car,”

he asked, “or come in with me?”

Shannah glanced out the window. The post office was located next to the Department of Motor Vehicles. They were the only two buildings on the block, and both were dark. “I’ll go with you.”

He opened the door for her, then took her hand and they walked into the building together.