giving her courage a swift kick, she tiptoed across the floor.

the lid was open. and erik delacourt lay inside. clad in a faded gray t-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants, he looked like he was just taking a nap.

all the vampires she had seen looked indisputably dead. why didn't he? his skin didn't look pale and waxy. if she touched him, would he feel it? was his skin cold? did his heart beat when he was asleep? she frowned. did it beat when he was awake?

and even as those questions chased themselves across her mind, his nostrils flared and then his eyelids opened and she found herself gazing into his eyes. dark eyes instantly filled with awareness and concern.

as if by magic, the candles overhead sprang to life, illuminating the room in a soft, golden glow.

"daisy, is something wrong?"

she shook her head, too discomfited to speak. he sounded so...so normal.

he leaned up on one elbow, worry creasing his brow. "what are you doing down here?"

"i was..." she lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "just curious, i guess."

"curious?"

"i..." she worried her lower lip, then decided, what the hell, why not tell him the truth? "i was curious to see how you looked when you were..." she gestured at the coffin.

"ah," he murmured. "you wanted to see me while i was at rest?"

she nodded.

and his frown deepened. "why?"

"i'm not sure."

"feminine curiosity, perhaps, like alice, wandering in wonderland."

"i guess so."

"being a blood thief, i'd think you would have seen a number of vampires at rest."

she nodded absently. "how did you know i was here?"

"i smelled you."

"do i stink?" daisy asked, embarrassed by the thought.

"not at all," he said with a wry grin. "you smell quite delectable."

she didn't think that was a good thing, not when he was a predator and she was prey.

"as entertaining as this is," he said, smothering a yawn, "i need my rest."

"of course, i'm sorry. i shouldn't have..."

he made a vague gesture of dismissal with his hand. the candles flickered out as he sank into the depths of the casket, his eyes closing as he succumbed to the dark sleep.

"...disturbed you," she murmured. she watched him for a few moments; then, with a sigh, she left the lair. she closed the heavy iron door as quietly as she could before making her way up the stairs.

vampire or not, he was still the most intriguing man she had ever met.

daisy passed several hours reading and watching tv. she fixed lunch, watched another movie, and when she grew bored with that, she found a crossword puzzle book. vampires doing crossword puzzles. who'd a thunk it? opening the book, she noticed that several of the puzzles had been completed. in ink.

she fixed an early dinner, partly because she was hungry, and partly because cooking and cleaning up afterward gave her something to do. time had never passed this slowly at home.

she had just started another crossword puzzle when erik appeared. one minute she was alone in the living room, the next he was there.

the book fell to the floor as she pressed one hand to her heart. "how do you do that?"

he shrugged. "mind over matter, i guess."

daisy retrieved the book and laid it on the table beside the sofa.

erik sat beside her. "i didn't mean to startle you."

"well, i think you startled me out of a year's growth," she muttered irritably. "can all vampires materialize out of thin air like that?"

"as far as i know."

daisy frowned. for a girl who came from a family of hunters, it occurred to her that she didn't really know a whole heck of a lot about vampires, and that some of the things she thought she knew were false. she supposed she should have paid more attention when her father had explained things to her, but she had been young and a little cocky at the time. looking back over the last few years, she realized she was lucky to be alive. how much longer would her luck hold out, she wondered, now that she was being hunted by a 512-year-old vampire?

curious, she canted her head to the side. "how old are you?"

coming out of nowhere, she supposed she couldn't blame him for looking surprised. for a moment, she didn't think he was going to answer.

"i've been a vampire for a little over three hundred and twenty-five years."

ah. that explained how he had been able to be awake when she arrived the other afternoon. maybe it also explained why he didn't look dead when he was at rest. no doubt his blood would bring a high price, just as he had said.

one thing she did know about vampires was that they were considered young for the first hundred years; anything that survived over five centuries was viewed as ancient. of course, you could never tell how old vampires were just by looking at them, or how long they had been undead, since they stopped aging once they were turned.

"when were you turned?" she had heard of one female vampire who had worked the dark trick on a five-year-old child because she was lonely and wanted a little girl for company. it was said that the little girl aged emotionally, but her body never matured. a cruel fate, daisy thought, to have an adult mind trapped in a child's body.

erik draped one arm along the back of the sofa. "you're full of questions tonight, my little flower. any particular reason?"

"not really." sitting back, she folded her arms under her breasts. "just curious."

he regarded her through narrowed eyes, as if trying to judge her sincerity, and then he shrugged. "i was turned on my thirtieth birthday." beyond doubt, it had been a night he would never forget, nor forgive.

"not a very nice present," daisy remarked.

"true enough, although it lasted far longer than any of the other gifts i received that night."

daisy frowned, surprised that he could make jokes about something that had surely turned his whole life upside down. "how did it happen?"

"my wife..."

"you were married?"

"of course. i was a healthy male in my prime."

"did you have children?"

"yes." he looked past her, his voice almost a whisper. "a boy and a girl."

"i'm sorry, i didn't mean to bring up unhappy memories."

"it was a long time ago." and yet, even all these years later, he could see their faces clearly in his mind, hear the sound of his wife's voice, the laughter of his children.

"but it still hurts," daisy said quietly.

"yes."

"did your wife know you were a warlock?"

"of course. i couldn't keep a thing like that a secret."

"and she didn't mind?"

"i wasn't a practicing warlock then, hadn't been for years." he had forsaken his magic completely when he married. his mother had never forgiven him for turning his back on his heritage. there were those who practiced the art of magic, and those, like erik and his mother, who were born to it.

"go on," daisy coaxed. "you said you were turned when you were thirty."

"yes. abigail, my wife, had given me a surprise party. i think she must have invited everyone in london..."

"you're from england, then?"

"yes, originally." he had been a wealthy man back then, landed gentry, with a large estate and a dozen servants to do his bidding.

"you don't sound english."

"i lost my accent years ago."

she tried to imagine what erik would have been like back then. in her mind's eye, she tried to imagine him wearing the clothing of the period, overseeing a large estate, presiding at the dinner table, but she couldn't. it was even more difficult to picture him with a wife and children.

"as i was saying, abigail had given me a party. i was mingling with our guests in the ballroom after dinner when i saw a woman i didn't recognize. i supposed her to be a friend of abigail's. i went over to introduce myself..."

he paused a moment, his thoughts turned inward. "needless to say, she wasn't abigail's friend, or anyone else's. she persuaded me to take her outside, saying she wanted to see the gardens in the moonlight. once we were alone..."

he paused again. a muscle throbbed in his cheek. "once we were alone, she mesmerized me, and then, while i was still in her thrall, she let me see what she really was. i fought her as best i could, but to no avail. small and petite though she was, she had the strength of twenty grown men. she held me down and drained me to the point of death, and then offered me a choice. i could die, or i could become what she was."

rising, he began to pace the floor in front of her. "at the time, i didn't fully realize what it meant to be a vampire. i thought all it entailed was drinking a little blood to survive, and i was willing to do that, to do anything, to stay with my family." he laughed, a cold, bitter laugh. "how incredibly foolish i was! i didn't return to the party. i spent the rest of the night trying to come to terms with what had happened. i convinced myself that everything would be all right, that i'd be able to hide what i was from abigail and my children. i spent the next day buried under a pile of straw in the stables. when i woke that night, i was ravenous."

daisy stared up at him, afraid to hear the rest.

he stopped in front of the hearth, his hands resting on the mantel. "i could hear the beating of the hearts of those in the house. servants. guests who had spent the night. abigail. my children. i climbed down from the hayloft, my only thought to feed."

"you didn't...?" she imagined him bursting into the house, mad with need, fangs bared, attacking his wife and his children.

slowly, he turned to face her. "no, but i would have. instead, i attacked one of the grooms who had come in to feed the horses. the thirst...it was more powerful, more painful, than anything i had expected. he didn't survive. when i came to myself, when i saw what i'd done, i knew i could never face abigail, never trust myself to be with her or our children. i saddled a horse and left the estate. i never went back."