Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

he was haggard. But he had just returned from negotiating with the vampire who’d stolen his soul mate, and come back, it seemed, with less than good news.

      “Want to feed first?” Christopher asked. She hadn’t been wrong.

      Justin shook his head. “Soon. I need to. I refused our Central European acquaintance’s offer of hospitality.” He sounded as disgusted as she had in her mortal vegetarian days, when she’d once been offered grilled kidneys for breakfast. He did manage a semi-smile. “There’s something you need to know.”

      Of course, neither he nor Christopher could talk standing in the kitchen like any normal friends sharing life-altering news. No, they settled in the living room—Christopher in his usual wing chair and Justin in the recliner, which he pointedly didn’t recline. Since they wanted to get comfortable before possibly disrupting her life, Dixie took a little longer and turned on the gas fireplace. She hadn’t yet acquired the others’ skittishness towards fire. She still saw a fire as comforting, welcoming, and relaxing. But she hadn’t survived the great fire of London; both Christopher and Justin had.

      “Shoot,” Christopher invited, when they all finally got settled.

      “Want the good news first, or the bad?”

      “Good news always comes first,” Dixie said. Christopher didn’t argue.

      “Territory is not a problem.” Justin explained the division of lands.

      “Just like that?” Dixie asked. “We get use of six states. Don’t the inhabitants and the U.S. government have something to say about it?”

      “The government and the inhabitants don’t believe we exist, Dixie,” Julian said quietly. “Agreements among immortals don’t involve them.” He had a point, but the thought of a Transylvanian warlord and a Roman surgeon divvying up her country rather teed her off.

      “We’ll need space to roam, Dixie. We can’t stay here more than ten, fifteen years—twenty tops,” Christopher said.

      That she wouldn’t argue. Christopher had been doing this for four centuries, Justin much longer. “So that’s the good news.” Essentially it was. “What’s the bad news?”

      Justin paused. If he’d been mortal it would have been for a slow, deep breath. “Vlad Tepes is making ghouls.”

      Between Justin’s tone and Christopher’s shocked expression, she gathered this was horrific, not merely bad.

      “By Abel!” Christopher said at last. “Are you sure?”

      “I saw two.”

      Dixie resisted asking where the difficulty lay. It wasn’t easy.

      “Think Gwyltha knows about this?” Christopher asked.

      Justin stared at him as if processing the question. “I doubt he’d tell her. She has rather strong feelings on the subject.” He shrugged. “But if Vlad supports it…Hell, if I know.”

      “She wouldn’t countenance the making of ghouls.” Christopher spoke with certainty.

      It was time to ask for explanations. “What’s the taboo about ghouls?” Their existence she didn’t question. Vampires and witches she’d learned about the hard way, ghouls she’d take on faith.

      “Ghouls are mindless tools,” Christopher said, “created by some vampires to use as menials, servants. It’s abuse.”

      “Okay, help me out here.” She paused as she thought a moment. “Ghouls are living dead…right?” Both men nodded. “We’re dead…or would be if we weren’t vampire…What’s the big difference?”

      Christopher looked less shocked the time she’d asked if she couldn’t just feed from him. One look at Justin suggested vampires sometimes needed CPR. “Dixie,” Justin managed at last, “it’s the difference between life and death!”

      “I’m not sure I see it.” She turned to Christopher. He’d always been willing to explain.

      He didn’t let her down this time. “You’re right that we’re both resurrected, so to speak, and yes, both vampires and ghouls are created by vampires. The differences are immense. We have reason, mental strength, physical power and endurance. When we’re strong enough and old enough, we can transmogrify. We heal from hurt rapidly. Ghouls possess none of this. When they’re made, or rather raised, those powers are withheld.” He paused. “As Justin said, it makes for mindless, immortal creatures who can be used.”

      “They’re chattel,” Justin went on, “passed from one controller to another and used for whatever purpose the current owner chooses.”

      “Like slaves?” Dixie asked.

      Justin shook his head. “Worse. Slaves, at least in my time, had rights and laws to protect them. Ghouls have nothing.”

      “Slaves didn’t have much protection here,” Dixie added, remembering back to South Carolina history in eighth grade.

      “But slavery was abolished a while back.” Okay a century, and so a mere eye blink in time to these two. “So,” she looked at both vampires, “Vlad’s got these two ghouls, slaves if you like. What are we going to do about it?”

      Chapter Four

      They both stared at her as if she’d sprouted pumpkins from her ears. She recognized that look in Christopher’s eyes. “We are going to do something, right?”

      Justin spoke first. “There’s nothing to be done.” He paused. “Not now. Maybe later.”

      “Later?” Dixie waited for clarification. She managed, but only just, not to fold her arms and tap her foot. This was an elder vampire she was dealing with, not a recalcitrant third grader.

      “Dixie, I know you’re thinking!” Christopher said. Unfortunately, that was completely true. She veiled her thoughts. Fat lot of good it did now as he frowned at her. “We can’t just barge in on his territory and offer them asylum. It doesn’t work that way.”

      “Okay, how does it work?”

      “Diplomatically.” Dixie raised her eyebrows at Justin’s reply. He went on. “Precipitous action, even if well-intentioned, would only backfire and result in the vampire equivalent of a territorial invasion. I just went to a lot of trouble to establish boundaries. They need to remain.”

      “And so those poor women remain too?”

      He shook his head. “For now, yes.” Okay, he’d pontificated before about time and immortality but even so. “It will be taken care of, Dixie. But not by us.”

      “Who?” She heard Kit gave a gasp of exasperation. Okay, maybe she was pushing it, but the thought of those two women in eternal bondage…

      “Someone who has influence with Vlad.” Justin paused.

      “Gwyltha.” The leader of their colony. The woman who’d broken Justin’s heart. “I’ll talk to her when I get home. She has even stronger feelings than you in this matter, Dixie.”

      “She’ll stop him?”

      “If anyone can, she will,” he replied.

      Dixie nodded. “I know.” Much as she hated to sit back and wait, she’d been vampire long enough to know Gwyltha’s powers far exceeded her own.

      “Let her handle it, Dixie. Don’t go rushing off on a rescue mission.”

      Christopher’s words irritated beyond measure. “I don’t rush off on rescue missions. I plan them in advance!” She stomped out into the kitchen and stared at the never-used stove. She trusted Justin. If he said Gwyltha would handle it, she would. But something burned deep in Dixie’s soul at the thought of those two ghouls…or were there perhaps more?

      The whole thing seemed preposterous. Okay, Vlad and Justin barely tolerated