Bloodline - Maggie Shayne

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round mirror, with a little wire hanger on it. He must have gotten it when he’d been in the kitchen getting me my…beverage.

      I didn’t move as he offered it to me.

      “Go ahead. You’re not going to believe me until you see proof. So take a look, Lilith. You cast no reflection. And while you’re at it, feel your incisors. Or just take a look at mine.”

      He bared his teeth, and I sucked in a sharp breath and jerked backward. But even as I did, my tongue was exploring my own teeth and finding the same thing I’d seen in him. My eyeteeth were slightly elongated, pointed—and razor sharp. I met his eyes and had the feeling he knew what I had just discovered, and then I stood and reached for the mirror with a trembling hand.

      I held it away from me and looked into it to be sure it reflected other things. The throw pillows, the dancing flames, the painting of Lilith above the hearth. It did.

      Swallowing hard, I tipped the mirror slowly toward my face. And then I blinked, because I wasn’t there. The mirror reflected the wall behind me, but not me. I lifted a forefinger and moved it back and forth in front of the mirror. But there was no image reflected there.

      My hands went numb, and the mirror fell to the floor and shattered.

      4

      Ethan had watched the reactions cross Lilith’s beautiful face as he’d revealed, bit by bit, the truth to her. First there had been confusion, followed quickly by amusement when she finally got the gist of what he was trying to tell her—but thought he was making a joke.

      But even then, there had been something more, something lying beneath it all. Some instinctive, living part of her being that recognized the truth when she heard it. And as he went on, slowly, ruthlessly, convincing her, showing her, her expression had turned to one of disbelief and then, as she gaped at the glass, to one of horror.

      As the mirror fell, her body sank heavily, all at once, onto the sofa. She didn’t fall, but she didn’t sit down, either. She just…let go, landing hard on the cushions, her head hanging, eyes unfocused, gazing at nothing.

      “Lilith…” he began as he moved closer, knelt in front of her, wished he could have found an easier way to tell her what she was.

      “I knew,” she whispered. “I mean, part of me knew. It didn’t even sound untrue when you said it.” Then she snapped her gaze up to his, focusing at last. “How did you know? Do you know me, Ethan?”

      He averted his eyes. “Vampires can sense other vampires. I knew what you were before I ever set eyes on you in the stable. What I didn’t know was whether you had come here to kill me.”

      “You keep saying that. Why?” she asked.

      He sat in the chair again and let his own head fall forward as he rubbed the back of his neck and wrestled with his conscience. How much should he tell her? Because the thing was, he did know her. Though they’d had almost no interaction at The Farm, he knew her. He’d watched her, seen her, learned her nature. Her reaction, once she remembered, would be as predictable as her need for blood, her aversion to sunlight.

      She would go back. He knew she would.

      “I need to know,” Lilith said softly. “If there are vampires out there hunting down and killing other vampires, then don’t you think I need to know?”

      “You’ll be safe as long as you stay here.” His head came up then, and he plumbed her eyes and her mind at once. “And as long as you aren’t lying to me.”

      “I’ve told you everything that’s happened since I woke up beneath that bridge. It feels to me as if I were born in that moment.”

      He tipped his head to one side, ran a hand over his chin. “I suspect you were.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I believe, Lilith, that you were made over into a vampire, just prior to this…sleep. I think it likely that you awoke to your new life tonight for the very first time.”

      “Do vampires normally forget everything that came before?”

      He shrugged. “I didn’t. And I’ve never exactly…known any other vampires.”

      She flinched when he said that, her head jerking slightly to the left as her eyes squeezed tight.

      “What? What is it?”

      Brows furrowed, she pinched the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. “A flash, maybe. I don’t know.”

      “A memory?”

      She opened her eyes and speared him with her steady gaze. “I saw a person—at least I think it was a person, though it looked more like a decomposing corpse. It was bound in chains, and I felt its agony. And that was all.”

      He tipped his head to one side, studying her and wondering what horrors she had seen at The Farm that he had not.

      “Do you know what it could mean?” she asked.

      He shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t.”

      “What do you know about our kind?”

      How could he answer that? He only knew the Chosen—the captives who, like the two of them, had been raised at The Farm. Everything he knew of vampires had been taught to him by the keepers. And he didn’t trust them—he never had. But as he thought it over, he wondered. If amnesia was a common aftereffect of being made over, that would explain why he’d never heard from James in all this time. Maybe his brother didn’t remember him.

      “But then, why all the training and education? Why teach us things we’re only going to forget?” he muttered.

      “What are you talking about?”

      He snapped his gaze back to hers, aware he’d journeyed deeply into his own mind. “Nothing,” he said. “Just…thinking aloud.”

      “Oh.” She stiffened her spine. “That’s not the only…flash of memory I’ve had,” she told him.

      He looked at her and tried not to show her that the revelation startled him a bit. Hell, it wasn’t as if he honestly wished her memory were gone forever. He just needed some time—to figure things out.

      “I…remember kissing—or being kissed by—a man.” She blinked, but didn’t avert her eyes from his. “It felt like you.”

      “But we’ve only just met,” he told her.

      “Have we?”

      Clearing his throat, he got to his feet, feeling fidgety. “I need to go back to the stable. I was on my way to tend the horses when I found you.”

      She nodded, then turned her back to him and walked toward the fireplace, leaning one hand on the mantel, lowering her head so that her hair fell as suddenly as a curtain falling across a stage. It was as if she were already alone in the room.

      “You can come with me, if you like.”

      Without moving at all, she said, “I’ll stay, if you don’t mind. I have a lot to…process.”

      “All right.” He started for the door, then paused, because he hadn’t covered half what he needed to. And he wasn’t certain how he could, not without revealing everything, something he wasn’t confident enough of her motives to do yet. “Lilith, that car you encountered—the Escalade. Are you sure it didn’t follow you here?”

      “I’m sure.”

      Two words. He hoped she meant them. “If you need me…” he began.

      “I’ll open the door and shout.”

      No need. Just…shout at me with your mind. I’ll hear you.

      Her head rose slowly, and she turned toward him, blinking in surprise. “You will?”

      Now that she was looking at him,

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