"It's not what you think." Victor said as he hurried down the stairs after Elvi. "Really. I was just trying to help DJ."

"By playing Peeping Tom on Mabel?" she asked with disbelief, flouncing off the stairs in her blue robe and turning into the dining room. "What? Were you supposed to report back to DJ on what she wears to bed?"

"No, of course not," he said quickly. "Besides he knows. He's in there with her."

Elvi froze and whirled back. "What?"

"That probably wasn't the best way to go about explaining things," Victor muttered.

"What is DJ doing up there?" Anger replaced by concern, Elvi rushed back now, hurrying past him for the stairs, obviously intent on saving Mabel.

Cursing, Victor hurried after her.

"Wait, stop, you'll ruin everything," he hissed, catching up to her and grabbing her arm to stop her outside the bedroom door.

Elvi whirled, mouth open, no doubt to yell at him to let her go, but they both froze at the sudden cry that came through the bedroom door. Mouth snapping closed, she spun back to grab the bedroom door, but froze again as Mabel's voice came loud and clear, gasping, "Oh, DJ! God, yes!"

Blinking, she released the knob as if it had turned into a snake and stared at the closed door as if she'd never seen it before.

A growl-definitely DJ's-sounded, almost drowning out the rhythmic squeaking of the antique bed that left them in no doubt as to what was happening beyond the door.

"He works fast," Victor muttered with surprise, and then shrugged. The first time with a lifemate was always fast and furious, the pent-up longings and flashpoint passions bursting into flames and burning them both up quickly as they fed on each other's desire. If Victor was very lucky, he might get to experience that very thing soon.

Briefly, he added on a sigh. If Elvi was his lifemate, fate couldn't have handed him a worse hand. The last thing he would have hoped for was a lifemate who might very well be executed by the council. It wasn't exactly every immortal's dream woman.

"What are they doing?" Elvi asked uncertainly.

Victor peered at her with disbelief, then caught his hands behind his back and stared at the hall wall, refusing to meet her gaze. He was not explaining what was going on in that room. She was old enough to know what it was anyway and was-he was sure-just having difficulty believing that her sturdy, grumpy friend could make sounds like that.

He was rather surprised himself, Victor decided, as Mabel cried, "Harder. Oh yes! Oh, DJ! Oh God, yes! Ride me till the cows come home!"

Victor blinked at that, and then asked uncertainly, "Did she grow up on a dairy farm?"

Elvi opened her mouth, closed it again, then threw up her hands and whirled away as Mabel shouted something about stallions and saddles.

Victor's gaze dropped to the keyhole, but he shook his head and turned to follow Elvi. DJ was on his own.

Elvi's back was stiff as she descended the stairs once more.

Victor followed, searching his mind for something to say to ease the situation, but really, this was beyond him so he remained silent as he followed her through the dining room and around the counter into the kitchen. Elvi opened the refrigerator to consider its contents, and Victor glanced out the window to see that the fire was out and the men were now gone. He supposed they'd gone to their rooms while he was out with DJ.

The slam of the refrigerator door drew his startled gaze as Elvi turned on him.

"If he's messing with her feelings I will personally hide him," she warned through gritted teeth.

"He isn't," Victor assured her quickly. "He can't read her."

"And what the hell am I supposed to take that to mean?" she asked with mingled anger and bewilderment.

"It means she's his lifemate," Victor explained. "He won't hurt her."

"His lifemate," Elvi echoed, obviously confused, and he was reminded that she hadn't been taught all the things he'd been taught centuries ago and took for granted.

"Each of us has a lifemate," he explained. "Someone we can't read or control who is our perfect mate. Mabel is DJ's."

"But Mabel isn't a vampire," she said.

"An immortal," he corrected.

"Whatever," Elvi snapped. "She is mortal. How can she be his lifemate?"

"She isn't an immortal yet," Victor corrected. "If she agrees to be his lifemate, he will change her."

"He can do that?" she asked with amazement.

"Of course. DJ has never turned anyone, so by our laws is free to turn her if he wishes."

"That makes absolutely no sense to me," Elvi informed him on an unhappy sigh. "But what I meant was... Can he actually, physically turn her? I mean, I tried several times to turn Mabel. The books say biting them three times will do it, but I must have bit her a dozen times and she never turned. We kept trying and trying, but-"

"You tried to turn Mabel?" Victor asked with horror.

"Well, of course," she said, obviously surprised by his reaction. "We've been friends since childhood and suddenly I was young again and strong and she wanted to be too, and I didn't want to be alone in this."

Victor opened his mouth, thought better of what he'd been about to say, shook his head and instead said, "They have to consume or take in your blood. The sire has to give up their own blood. It carries the nanos. They'll move into the turnee's bloodstream, reproduce themselves, and spread until they infect the whole body."

"Right. Nanos," Elvi muttered to herself. She'd been pondering that while in her bath earlier. Considering what the men had said had left her feeling slightly deflated. As much as she hated to admit it, she was almost sorry to hear she was a vampire because of nanos, not a curse. It was ridiculous, she knew but... that was how she felt.

Her dissatisfaction must have shown in her voice. Victor's eyebrows rose and he asked, "What?"

Elvi grimaced, and then shook her head. "It's just so... Well, there's no romance in nanos and science and... stuff."

"And there is in the explanation of the cursed and soulless walking dead?" he asked with disbelief.

She scowled, feeling foolish. "Well, at least the vampire is a tragic hero and not some science experiment."

Victor rolled his eyes. "The Dracula of Bram Stoker's story is not a tragic hero. He's a parasite, feeding on and turning the innocent willynilly, and the man he's based on damned near got us all destroyed back in the day."

"Dracula was based on a real person?" Elvi asked with interest. "Can I meet him?"

"No," Victor snapped. "He's dead."

"How could he be dead?" she asked. "We're immortal."

"No, we're not. I mean, we are mostly, but we can die if we're beheaded or-"

"Staked?" she asked.

"Staked, stabbed, or being shot in the heart can kill us if the implement used is left there. As will being burnt to death."

"Hmm." She considered this news, and then frowned.

"Then why on earth do you keep insisting I call it immortal? We aren't immortal at all. We're vampires."

Before he could respond to that, Elvi said, "So how did this man Dracula was based on nearly get you all destroyed?"

Victor's mouth twisted with irritation. This was a sore spot for him. "By being a bloody, stupid lush who mouthed off to Stoker and told him all about our kind while he was drunk. We had managed to get away with only causing quiet rumors ere that. Once Jean Claude opened his stupid mouth and Stoker published his book, we were hunted. It took decades to convince the majority that it was all fiction and we still have to wipe minds and stop the occasional vampire stalker."

"Immortal stalker," she corrected absently, and then asked, "So Dracula was based on someone named Jean Claude. Who was he?"

"Not exactly based on him, no, and I'm not discussing this," Victor muttered and moved to the refrigerator to retrieve a bag of blood for her. She was looking pale.

"So you have to give them your blood," Elvi said, returning to the original point. "Huh. I must have missed that part of the movie."

"What movie?" he asked with confusion as he handed her the bag.

"Dracula. I must have been in the bathroom or something when he fed her his blood. I don't remember seeing that," Elvi explained and popped the bag to her teeth.

"What?" This comment so took him aback, that Victor unthinkingly snatched the bag away from her mouth so that she could answer, and then dropped it in surprise when it began to squirt blood everywhere. He started to bend to pick it up, but then stopped, unable to keep from asking with disbelief, "You researched by watching the movie rather than reading the damned book?"

Tsking at the mess he'd made, Elvi grabbed some paper towels from the roll, snapping, "Well, the book was checked out of the library and I wanted to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. Movies are faster than books."

Victor rolled his eyes and muttered, "Definitely a child of your times. It used to be that university kids read the crib sheets on books they were supposed to read, now they watch the movie."

Holding the wadded-up paper towel, Elvi narrowed her eyes. "You know, Victor, sometimes you sound as pompous as a horse's ass."

"Mabel wasn't the only one brought up on a farm, I see," he said stiffly, then asked politely, "Are horse's asses really pompous?"

"God! Sometimes you're such a... a... man."

"Good of you to notice," Victor responded with a grin and the irritation slowly faded from her face, replaced with a reluctant smile.

Several moments passed with the two of them simply standing their smiling at each other, and then Victor's eyes focused on her forehead as he thought that he should try to read her and find out exactly where he stood. Before he could, Elvi's tongue slipped out to glide along her lips. It was a nervous action, but as seductive and distracting as could be and he found his gaze shifting to her lips instead. She had the most incredible mouth. Full, red lips that begged to be caressed and kissed and he already knew they were as soft as they appeared. He found himself moving slowly forward, his focus locked on her lips and what they would feel and taste like and nothing else.

"Victor?" Elvi said uncertainly.

"I want to kiss you." It wasn't a request, but an explanation and her answer was a soft puff of air that came out as an "oh."

Taking that as agreement, he closed his lips over hers. They were soft pillows, giving way to his firmer mouth. Victor abruptly slipped his tongue out to urge her lips apart and test her taste.

Sweet, he decided. She'd obviously had chocolate since they last kissed. She must have it stashed somewhere in her room. He liked the taste of chocolate mingled with her, he decided. It was the last almost coherent thought he had, then his brain disengaged, allowing his body's wants and needs to take over the driver's seat.

Elvi stood completely still, almost holding her breath as Victor's mouth pressed gently against hers. She was suffering a definite sense of deja vu. All the feelings and needs he'd brought to roaring life in her body up in her room, needs that had been forced onto the back burner when they were interrupted, now burst back to raging life. When he suddenly pressed forward, urging her head back as his tongue slid out and invaded, she drew in a gasp and dropped the paper towel she'd gathered to clean up the blood on the floor and caught at his upper arms to steady herself.

For one moment, Elvi felt like an invaded country, overwhelmed and unprepared, but then his tongue rasped over her own, drawing a moan from her throat as he reawakened and pulled passions from her she hadn't felt in years. Her body stretched and arched of its own accord, pressing her breasts against his chest and thrusting her pelvis forward until it met a hard resistance that pressed back.

Elvi groaned, her own tongue coming to life in her mouth and greeting his with an eager, lavish welcome.

She felt the counter against her back, but her attention was on his body pressing against her in front and the hunger it invoked. It had been so long since she'd been held and kissed this way. She was like a flower opening to sunlight after years of night. Her body ached to be touched and ached to touch as well.

Elvi let her hands slide up over his shoulders to his neck, one holding him there and urging him to take the kiss even deeper. The other slid up into his hair, nails scraping across the skin of his scalp as the soft locks caressed her fingers.

Victor growled and obliged the silent request. The kiss was suddenly harder, more demanding, and his hands began to move, sliding first around her waist then down to her behind to urge her closer until her body was plastered against his. Then one slid away, to run up over her hip and side, swiveling around in front as he reached her breast.

Passion had pooled between her legs as he ground into her, but Elvi gave a start in his arms at the excitement that immediately shot through her when his hand closed over her breast through the silk of her robe. Her nipples were immediately hard and aching, thrusting themselves eagerly forward for a caress they hadn't experienced in ages.

"Oh, Victor," she breathed as his mouth left hers and slid to her neck, drawing on the tender skin below her ear. He wasn't biting her, but she almost wished he would. Elvi wanted to bite him and could feel the pressure as her teeth shifted.

Crying out, she tilted her head back to avoid temptation, and stared blindly at the lights overhead as the blood rushed through her, hot with excitement. She wanted him; his kisses, his caresses, his body thrusting into hers, her teeth plunging into him, his sinking into her. Elvi's mind whirled with images and desires that scattered like dry leaves in a fall breeze when he suddenly tugged the neckline of her robe aside and dropped his mouth to latch onto a nipple.

Elvi clutched at his shoulders briefly, then began to tug on the back of his T-shirt, pulling the cloth upward until it bunched at his arms and she could touch the bare skin of his back. It wasn't enough. Growling deep in her throat, she caught her fingers in his hair and urged his head back up. Victor came reluctantly, allowing her nipple to slip from his lips and catching the naked breast in his hand as he raised his head to kiss her again.

Their tongues fought now, battling with their desires as she slid her hands under his T-shirt in front and scraped her nails over his flesh. His chest was hard and wide and muscular, a veritable playground, but her hands barely ran over all that masculine muscle before one dropped of its own accord and slid around to clutch at his behind, urging him harder against her until they were grinding through their clothes.

Victor growled at her aggression and suddenly reached down to catch her behind the thighs and lift her up, balancing her against the countertop as he pulled one leg forward around him. Elvi gasped as he suddenly tugged her robe the rest of the way open, then his hand slid between them, caressing her through her silk panties. The only thing she'd donned under the robe.

Crying out, she arched into the touch, aware that her body was weeping, soaking her panties with her need for him. Everything of any importance in the world suddenly seemed focused on that hot spot between her legs that he was stirring to turbulent life. She was aware that her breathing had become a fast, shallow panting, but it halted abruptly when he slid one finger beneath her lace panties and ran it over her bare flesh. Elvi sucked frantically at his tongue as her body bucked to his touch.

Her hand slid between them now too, finding him through his jeans and squeezing. Victor's reaction was almost violent. He thrust himself into that caress, then suddenly forced her hand away, caught his fingers in the delicate lace of her panties, and tugged sharply, ripping them from her body.

Elvi gasped in startled excitement, and then groaned as his hand returned to caressing her. Unobstructed, he cupped her in his hand and pressed the heel of his palm against the core of her, rubbing aggressively, and then slid one finger inside.

Elvi cried out, her hips shifting to meet the caress, and then cried out again as his mouth slid down her throat to her breast, his teeth grazing her nipple before he closed his mouth and began to suckle, his finger slipping away then thrusting into her again.

Elvi was on the edge of exploding from the pleasure. Her body was as tight as a bow string, her mind a confusion of need, sound was thundering in her ears and then-Victor suddenly jumped away from her like a rat abandoning ship.

Without his support, her trembling legs gave out and Elvi fell to her knees on the kitchen floor, a mass of confusion and frustration.

"There you are, Victor."

Elvi heard Edward Kenric's voice through her own panting and immediately understood that the thundering had been his jogging lightly down the stairs. She also understood why Victor was now standing wide-eyed at the end of the counter, a guilty look on his face. They'd nearly been caught misbehaving in the kitchen. Actually, they still might be caught, Elvi realized, when she spotted her torn panties lying on the floor next to the spilled bag of blood a few feet away.

If Edward came around the counter...

"I have a question for you," Kenric continued and much to her horror his voice was moving along the counter toward the end.

Panicking, she scrambled forward on all fours to snatch up her panties.

"Have you-Oh, Elvi."

She'd just stuffed her panties in the pocket of her robe, tied it closed, and snatched up the paper towel she'd dropped earlier when Edward came around the counter to join Victor.

"Hello, Edward." Forcing an innocent smile, Elvi began to swipe at the drying blood on the floor, then paused to snatch up the empty blood bag and toss it up and-she hoped-into the sink, before continuing to clean up the mess on the floor as if that's what she'd been doing all along.

"I didn't realize you were here as well. Can I help you with that?" he asked, moving closer.

"No, no. It's almost done. You go on and talk to Victor. Take him out on the deck if you want privacy," she encouraged. "I'll be done here in just a moment."

"If you're sure," he said politely, then turned to Victor and said, "If you wouldn't mind?"

Victor hesitated, then gave in to the inevitable and led the way out onto the deck.

Elvi sagged where she knelt, feeling as wrung out as a dishcloth. She only allowed herself a moment's respite, however, then quickly finished wiping up the blood on the floor. Once done, she stood and threw out the paper towel, then grabbed the empty blood bag from the sink and tossed it as well before moving to the refrigerator to collect a fresh bag of blood for herself. It was the reason she'd been headed downstairs in the first place, but she'd allowed herself to be distracted.

Her gaze slid to the counter where she'd almost had her first orgasm as a... well... not dead person.

Elvi took her bag with her and fled the kitchen. Now that the passion had passed she was embarrassed and unsure how to act with Victor. Dear Lord, she barely knew the man and had nearly had sex with him right there on the kitchen counter for anyone to walk in and catch them at it. What was the matter with her?

What's wrong with us? Elvi corrected silently as she moved past Mabel's room and heard the sounds coming from inside. She felt a moment's envy and had a brief flash in her mind of her and Victor making love in her... coffin, she ended the thought with a grimace as she recalled she didn't yet have a bed, then pushed the image away with a shake of the head.

For God's sake she-and Mabel-were both sixty-two-year-old women, practically senior citizens, both of whom had lived sedate, conservative lives. They were small-town girls who'd married their childhood sweethearts. She'd had no other lover other than her husband and knew the same was true of Mabel, and yet here they were acting like a couple of tramps.

Elvi managed not to roll her eyes at her own thoughts. She knew it was an old-fashioned term and that her thinking, too, was old-fashioned. But that was what she was, an old-fashioned, small-town girl who suddenly found herself behaving completely out of character.

Worse yet, while Elvi was aware she should be grateful that Edward had interrupted before things had gone any further, she really wished the annoying man had just stuck to his damned room and not interrupted at all. She'd had a taste of the delights Victor could show her and wanted more.

"Damn," Elvi muttered. She never should have come down for a bag of blood before retiring. And what had happened to the "I'm not ready to date?" feelings that had first attacked her on hearing these men were here. Now she didn't care about dating, she wanted to sleep with one of them. She supposed that was a good thing at least. There was only one she was interested in sleeping with.

A passionate scream drew her gaze back over her shoulder to Mabel's door as she slid into her own room. Elvi wished she could talk to the woman, but, of course, that was impossible right now. It looked like she would just have to wait until DJ left. In the meantime, she'd take a cold shower, change into her nightgown, and probably relive every moment in the kitchen in great detail. Damn, the man could kiss.