She pondered for a couple of minutes. "This story was probably concocted because it was an easy way to explain how vampires came into existence."

He leaned his arms on his knees. "That's my guess. But it also explains why so few vampires are actually made over time. Once a vampire bites you, it's very difficult for him stop taking your blood. Most of the time you'd be drained dry. As you saw with Lachlan, Micky, and Jared, it takes only one bite to make a half-vampire."

She tried thinking of her newfound friends as somethingalmost vampire and couldn't.

"You acknowledge me as entirely vampire," he said.

She gave him a rueful grin. "Because I've seen you in action, that's why. I've seen you lift a punk off his feet using only one arm. I've seen your startling eyes."

He returned her smile. "Wait until you catch Lachlan, Micky, or Jared angry. That's a sight to behold."

She reached up and almost without forethought traced her fingers along his bearded jaw.

As a teen she'd never imagined being attracted to a man with a beard. Ronan had changed all that. He trapped her hand in his and touched her fingers to his lips for a quick kiss.

"The story doesn't end there," he said. "It's said not all six of the children were evil.

Some were good and they tried to help others where they could. They also vowed to hunt down the destructive vampires and rid the world of them."

Heavy silence covered the room as she absorbed what Ronan had told her. She waited for him to continue.

When he didn't speak, she allowed the question to form. "Do you believe evil created the first vampires?"

For a long time he stared at the wall, as if uncertain how to answer. "I know nature creates aberrations. It doesn't take a curse to cause oddities on earth."

"So there isn't anything, in theory, that will kill the ancient one. Except for this sexual union between you and a woman."

"Right again."

"Why you?"

"Yusuf didn't know, but the seer just said she foresaw it."

She didn't want to admit to herself that maybe Yusuf and the seer really didn't know what they were talking about.

Ronan took her arm and leaned in close to her. His warm scent swept her up.Trust me, they have accumulated enough knowledge and experience over the years to know.

That's an incredible story, Ronan.

Incredible, but does it ease your mind?

She considered his mental question and knew she had to understand more. Renewed apprehension made her speak again. "How did you get to be this...this way?"

"You mean charming, devilish, and-"

She gently smacked his arm. "No, you turkey. I mean a vampire. How did you become a vampire?"

His grin said he knew what she wanted all along but liked teasing her. "I was born in Limerick, Ireland around 1300 to a poor peasant mother and a father who left her shortly thereafter. I was a bastard."

Though being a bastard didn't have the same stigma today as it did in his birth time, she felt his pain like a hot poker in the gut.

"I grew up in the most rat-infested area of the city filled with crime and prostitution and hate."

She cupped his face for a second to give comfort. "That must have been horrible."

"It was all I knew. Sometimes I didn't realize how bad it was because I never left my part of the city until I was twelve." His accent thickened, like he'd gone back in time and brought history with him. "My mother was a whore."

Dishonor tinted his voice, and she felt a deep ache inside. "What your mother did wasn't your fault. That was her choice."

He snorted softly. "You think she had a choice?"

"Come on, Ronan. You've been around seven hundred years. You know she did."

His eyes hardened, a glint of the vampire she'd first met in the graveyard returning. "Her mother was a whore, and probably her mother before that. What else did she know? What opportunities do you think she had?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't judge her. I'm sure she did what she thought had to do to survive."

For a long time he said nothing, and silence made the room somehow gloomier, as if the comfort turned to solemnity.

He continued his tale. "I don't know to this day if my siblings were actually full brothers and sisters. I doubt it. I was the eldest, then came Elspeth a year later. We were best friends and I loved her, but-"

When he cut himself off again, she dared look into his eyes and saw a sorrow so deep and agonizing she wanted to cry. "What happened to her?"

"A john stabbed her when she was only seventeen. He took what little money she had and left her dead in an alley."

Her mouth dropped open. "Your sister was a prostitute, too?"

He closed his eyes and she mourned the way animation left his face. Reminded of how lifeless he'd seemed not so long ago, she squeezed his arm in sympathy.

He opened his eyes. "Yes." After taking another sustaining breath he returned to his story. "My brother Balcor took it even harder than I did. He was four years younger than me. He lived to be eighty but had no children."

"And you never really knew your father?"

He shook his head. "Never."

Clarissa swallowed hard. "How did you transform into a vampire?"

"After my sister was murdered my mother went into a decline. She blamed herself for Elspeth's death, but I blamed myself even more."

Moisture touched his eyes and she wanted to cry with him. Touched by the agony she saw building behind his memories, she said, "It's all right. If you don't want to talk about it-"

"No, I have to. You have to know it all before you'll trust me."

He was right. She needed to know the man before her more than she needed to breathe.

"Balcor said he'd take care of our mother, and I couldn't take living in the stinking city any more. I also realized I couldn't do anything to help her. She was a vile and hateful woman with spite in her soul. I left Limerick with a little money I'd gathered from working in a blacksmith's shop. I headed into the country and traveled."

"Did you see your mother and brother again?"

His sarcastic smile said it all. "I did. But not until after I was made a vampire. They rejected me when I told them what I'd become." He shook his head as if to dislodge the thought. "But that happened later. I stayed in Ireland, and eventually found work as a blacksmith at Allegheny Castle near theShannon River. I made swords and shod horses for knights in Lord Allegheny's employ."

She swallowed hard. "In one of my visions about you I saw a fortress."

"That was Allegheny. The head blacksmith, O'Hennessy, took me under his wing. He was an expert swordsman and taught me how to fight."