“So… I heard you and Tamara played chess?”
“Here we go.” Dallas groaned. “I’d rather start with the buggerish gnomes.”
“We’ll get to them.” I laughed. “But first, Tamara told us about the wager.”
“I didn’t plan to kiss her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not. She told us the whole story—her version, of course.”
“Of course.” He sighed. “I would not have chosen her for a second date, but some of these matters are out of my control.”
“What do you mean?”
His gaze flicked to me. “You asked me for something, and now I must ask you for something in return.”
“Yes?”
“Everything we talk about on this ride remains confidential. It must stay between us, Gwyneth. I mean it.”
I nodded. “You have my word. Now, please, explain what you meant.”
“Tariq and his group—the producers from the network—are largely running the Pageant. They mostly tell me what to do, and I do it, as long as I don’t have some sort of moral objection.”
I bristled. “Does that mean they picked me as your first date? And as your first second date?”
“I picked you.” Dallas gently but firmly laced his fingers through mine. “Our interactions have been legitimate. The rest of the proceedings are mostly staged. They have me going through the motions with a smile on my face.”
“But you still kissed Shaye,” I blurted out.
He sighed. “Yes, I still kissed Shaye.”
“I should let that go, I suppose.” I wanted to, but part of my brain—the prefrontal cortex? I’d learned about it at the academy—was still too young and unformed to handle such a sophisticated maneuver. So I throbbed with hot jealousy any time I thought of the prince with my pretty friend.
“Yes, you should let it go.” He leaned forward. “Because my hand is around yours right now. Not only that, I just met your family not too long ago because we drove through the night to see them. And I chose you for my first second date, not Shaye. Because for some reason, I cannot seem to stay away from you, no matter how often you yell at me and stomp off—which, I might remind you, you did right before that very date.”
I cleared my throat, not knowing what the bloody hell to say. He had me there. “I see.”
He leaned back a bit, hand still clamped around mine. “Do not doubt me, Gwyneth.”
Chills needled down my spine. “I do not, Dallas.”
He seemed to calm down. He tugged on my hand. “Proceed with your questions. I’m afraid I’ve lost track.”
“Back to Tamara.”
He groaned again. “Tariq wanted her for the next second date. She has a loyal following in the audience. He said she shows well on television and that her family’s influential. So not only is she good for ratings, she’s good for politics.”
“I can see that.” Tamara was beautiful, and she was never close to dull. “Her wager was if she won the chess match, you would kiss her.”
“Yes. Were you asking me a question?”
“How was it? The kiss?”
“It was…kiss-ish.” He pulled a face, and I swatted him.
“I mean it. She said it was dreamy. I want to know how you would describe it.”
He shrugged. “It was fine.”
“Fine?”
He shrugged again.
“She said you got a bit handsy.”
Dallas laughed so suddenly and hard I thought he might choke.
“Oh, I bet she did,” he said when he’d recovered. “I can’t believe you fall for her tricks. She’s playing you—and quite well, I must add.”
“So you didn’t get, er…handsy?”
Dallas looked thoughtful. “If I remember correctly, she put her arms here.” He took my hands and placed them around his broad shoulders, and I fastened them at the base of his neck.
“And I put mine here.” He put a large palm on each of my hips then flexed his fingers. He pulled me closer. “Just like this.”
He gazed down into my eyes, his face inches from mine.
“Oh.” Suddenly the car had gotten very, very hot. “I see.”
He shrugged, suddenly releasing me, a roguish grin on his face. “At least, that’s how I remember it.”
“Oh…you…you are…”
He arched an eyebrow. “Is that a question?”
I groaned while he chuckled. “No.”
I forced myself to recover—resisting the urge to fan myself or pummel him. “Moving on. I want to ask you about vampires and being a vampire.”
He smiled at me lazily, clearly enjoying the effect he had on me. “I’m listening.”
I primly cleared my throat. “You said before that you can become a vampire one of two ways: born a vampire or turned. Is that correct?”
“Yes. I was born this way. Others, like Eve, are turned.”
“So your parents had you biologically? The way humans have babies?”
“Yes, although the gestation period is longer for vampires. My mother carried me in her womb for twelve months instead of nine. You can’t rush greatness, of course.” He chuckled.
“Ha ha. But you were a baby, and you grew, just like a human?”
“Yes, but biological vampires only mimic humans to a point. Each year, I grew larger and stronger, passing through stages of development the same way a human child does. But when I turned twenty, that changed. I am still physically twenty, but I’ve aged in years.”
My brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m older than I look. But I’ll stay physically twenty for several decades or a bit longer, and then my body will age a bit more, and so on and so on. Aging is a much more protracted process for a vampire than a human. It takes you decades. It takes us centuries.”
“How old are you, exactly?” I peered at him.
“Older than you. But not by so very much.”
“Hmm.” So he would age, but not nearly as quickly as I would. The length of my human life would be a blip on his radar. “How old is your father?”
“Very old. So old that I won’t tell you because you would only have a billion more questions to ask, and the car ride isn’t long enough to answer them.”
“And your mother?”
He sat back a bit. “My mother’s different. She was turned. Those who are turned remain physically the same as the time of their transformation. So she looks young, but she’s actually quite a bit older than my father.”
“So… Eve will always look the same?”
“Yes. As will my mother, as will my friend Lucas, as will many of the Black Guard you’ve seen at the palace.”
“But you will age and change, as will your father.”
“That’s right.”
I nodded, trying to process all the information. “So you will grow old?”
“Yes. Eventually.”
“But will you die? Sorry to ask such a morbid question. But Eve keeps talking about her immortality—does that mean you cannot die?”
Dallas blew out a deep breath. “Remember, Gwyneth, what I said about keeping this a confidence?”
I nodded.
“I’m only going to tell you this because I trust you, and I believe you deserve to know the truth. I’m trusting you with my life and my family’s. I know that your brother and father are with the resistance, and I do not blame them—or you—because they couldn’t have known the whole story. But this type of information cannot be shared, or the rebels will use it against us.”
I started to butt in with more questions, but he held up his hand. “I won’t tell you everything on this trip. Not about the rebels, not about the settlements, not all of it. I can’t. It would be too dangerous for you. Not only that, but there isn’t time.”
I nodded, biting my tongue, willing him to continue.
“Back to your question: yes, vampires can die. We can be killed. The old stories are true—a stake to the heart can do it. Some of us can die from prolonged exposure to sunlight. I’m not one of them. Others can be weakened to the point of near death by sunlight, which makes us susceptible to pain and being captured. Oh, and silver is bad for all vampires. But there must be a lot of it to have any sort of effect.”
I frowned. “But none of the rebels even tried to stake you or capture you with silver. All they did was shoot.”
He shook his head. “Those were some particularly dumb rebels.”
When I grimaced, he put his hand over mine. “Humans are not fast enough to stake us. Other vampires can do it, but humans can only do it if we’ve been weakened by the sun or a large amount of silver or if they catch us unawares, which is highly unlikely.”
“So they were shooting because they thought they could at least slow you down?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “My understanding is that not all the rebels believe what they’ve heard about us. They haven’t yet learned our true weaknesses. That group thought they could take us with weapons. They were misinformed. It cost them their lives.”
“I see.” But really, I didn’t. There were so many moving pieces. “So if you aren’t staked in the heart, you will live forever?”
“Yes.” His voice was gentle. “I know it’s a lot to understand.”
“Yes, but I want to know more.” I paused for a moment, cheeks reddening. “Can vampires… Can they have a child with a human?”
Dallas’s gaze locked with mine. “Yes.”
The car was getting hot again.
“And would the child be a human or a vampire?”
“It would be an intercross.”
Did I imagine it, or was he blushing?
“Does an intercross drink blood, or eat food?”
“I think it varies. They’re quite rare.”
“So you’ve never seen one?”
“I have, but only a few. Human and vampire unions are few and far between.”
“Were there no humans up north, where you come from?”
He shook his head slightly. “No.”
I filed that away to think about later. “Tell me more about the intercross.”
“Like the rest of us vampires, there’s quite a variety of characteristics for each of them. Intercrosses are like snowflakes—no two are alike.”
I pondered this for a moment, churning the information over in my mind. There was so much I’d never even thought of, never considered.
“So you will… You will marry a human girl. One chosen from the Pageant.” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“Yes.”
“And will you turn her—the winner—so that she may have the protections that you have as a vampire?”
“No.” His answer was swift, without hesitation.
“Why not?”
“Because I would never turn a human. I don’t believe in it.”
“Why not?” I asked again.
He sighed. “It’s not a choice a human can make. It should be informed consent, and that’s not possible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s no way a human can truly understand the consequences of becoming a vampire, so they cannot truly give informed consent. That’s one of the reasons I was so appalled by what my mother did to Eve. She took her by force, and that was wrong, so wrong. Eve would never have chosen to be a vampire. She despised us.”
“But she’s very happy now. She told me she loves being a vampire.”
“Eve is special. But don’t let her fool you—her reaction to her transformation was difficult, at first. It’s very hard to let go of your human life.”
“But she’s managed, and she’s thriving.”
Dallas traced an outline on my palm. “Yes, she’s made the best of it. She has a knack for seeing the bright side of things. She’s amazing, really. She believes her transformation was meant to be. She wants to help people and vampires.”
“That’s what she told me, as well.” I watched his fingers as they trailed along the lines of my palm.
“It’s not like that for everyone.”
“But what if your wife wanted to be changed?” I persisted. “What if she went through all the pros and cons and still chose to become a vampire?”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t. Being a vampire isn’t exactly a walk in the park, Gwyneth. Being human is so much easier.”
“Why? I don’t think being human is easy. We’re weak. We get old, and we get sick. We’re vulnerable to many more things than the odd stake or the sun.”
He took my palm in between both of his. “But humans can die. Everything is so much simpler when you can die.”
“Why do you say that?”
He turned to look out the window, at the falling darkness. “Because when you have eternity, you have until the end of time to regret. And who would choose that?”