sparkling and fresh. She wanted to go back to when she'd been that way. Sparkling, fresh, able to

believe in the goodness of others, unafraid. "I've only drunk wine once before," she said suddenly. Maybe it was the memories brought on by the wine. Or maybe it was going to the Society meeting and realizing they weren't what she'd believed. Or it was just Sebastian himself, but she suddenly needed to talk. She needed to tell someone-no, not just someone. She needed to tellhim about her past. Even though she was ashamed of it.

"Really? Only once?" he said. His voice was falsely interested in that way that people responded when they weren't sure where the conversation was going.

"Yes. My twenty-second birthday. Rather old, I guess. But my father was very strict. He had to be."

"Why?"

"Well, all his daughters were heiresses, of course. We had to make good impressions, and we couldn't make any bad choices. My father was a firm believer that alcohol led to many bad decisions."

"I'd have to agree with that one," Sebastian said, even as he took a sip of his own drink. Hard liquor of

some sort, golden like his eyes.

She sipped hers too, amazed she could still remember the tangy sharpness of the flavor, even after all these decades. It was amazing what could stay buried in the recesses of the mind. Sharp and clear and unforgotten.

"Both you and my father were right," she said. "I only drank one night and that night I made the worst choice of my life."

Chapter 18.

Sebastian watched Mina as she took another sip of her wine, grimacing just slightly at the taste.

He waited. He wanted to understand her, to know how she'd become a vampire. He needed to know how she'd come to be as old as she was and still have no idea how to use the powers that she'd been given. But most important, he wanted to know why she was scared of him.

"It was the evening of my twenty-second birthday. I remember him walking into the ballroom. And I remember thinking he couldn't be real-that men weren't really that beautiful." She laughed slightly, the sound eerily hollow.

Sebastian started to reach for her, wanting to soothe away the distant, haunted look in her dark eyes, but he was afraid the touch might startle her. Might stop her. And he had the feeling she needed to tell him this as much as he wanted to hear it.

"He came to one of the house parties we held every summer at our estate in Newport. It was a week-long event. The Rockefellers, the Carnegies, all the rich and famous attended. But from the moment Donatello strolled into my parents' home, I couldn't see anyone else."

Sebastian shifted, his chest contracting at her words. Disgust, he told himself, because he knew what this Donatello was. Not because Mina had once longed so intensely for another man.

"He was different from all the other men in the room. Tall, dark, breathtakingly beautiful. Mysterious too."

Another sharp squeeze. Oh yeah, he hated this guy.

Sebastian watched Mina take a drink of her wine.

"My eldest sister, Lorelei, was the lovely one. She was tall and elegant and-" Mina sighed. "Well, she always captured notice. She couldn't have stopped it if she wanted to, which she didn't. My second sister, Ava, was also beautiful and intelligent and bold. She drove my parents mad with her antics, but they also adored her. Then there was my baby brother. The son that a father always wants. Daddy doted on Bertram. And between the second daughter and the favored son was me. Another girl. Plain and bookish and socially inept-at best."

"Mina," Sebastian said, no longer able not to touch her. He reached for the hand that rested on her knee, but she moved it out of his reach.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad for me." She shot him a look that dared him to pity her.

"I know," he assured her. "I just want to hold you."

She hesitated, staring at the hand he extended. Finally she slipped her hand into his, her fingers slender and cold. Protectiveness filled him at her delicateness.

She took another sip of her wine, then she continued, "When Donatello arrived at the house party, my sisters noticed him right away. But he didn't seem aware of them. He centered all his attention on me. That should have been my first warning sign."

"Mina-"

"Let me just keep going. Please."

Sebastian nodded.

"But I'd drunk that wine, and I felt bold. So I talked with him. And danced. As I said, the party was a week-long affair, and every night Donatello was there at my side, attentive and charming. He listened to my interests. Telling me all the things I longed to hear. Oh, I wasn't so naive that I didn't suspect he was after my fortune. Of course, he had to be-or so I thought as well."

Sebastian frowned at the offhanded certainty. Didn't she have any idea how lovely she was? How sweet and funny and perfect?

He squeezed her fingers, but didn't interrupt to tell her his opinion, because he knew she wouldn't want to hear it.

She didn't acknowledge his touch.

"My parents didn't approve of him. They knew, too, that he had to be after my inheritance and they didn't hesitate to tell me so. They told me if the man was truly interested in a love match, then he would have chosen Lorelei or Ava. But if he wanted only money, then I was the obvious choice."

"Why?"

"Because I was quiet and meek and wouldn't give him any trouble when he decided to spend my money freely and to find satisfaction elsewhere."

Sebastian couldn't keep his thoughts to himself any longer. "Forgive me, but your parents sound like assholes."

Mina blinked at him, and he expected her to be furious. After all, they were her parents. And he knew no one should insult someone else's family. Hell, he'd even defended Christian a time or two, and he'd been pure evil at the time.

Instead, she just shrugged.

"My parents were nothing if not practical."

Sebastian gritted his back teeth. There was nothing practical about their behavior. It was cruelty. How could parents hurt a child like that? How could they openly favor certain children over another? His parents had never shown preference to one of their children. He and his brothers had all treated their sister, Elizabeth, like a pet. But she was the baby and the only girl. And never had their parents favored her.

"Even though I knew my parents were probably right, I ignored their warnings. I sneaked around, finding ways to meet Donatello." She stared straight ahead, her expression faraway as if she was recalling each of their clandestine meetings.

Sebastian didn't want her remembering those meetings, moments locked in another man's embrace.

Suddenly he realized he was more worried that she was recalling pleasant memories rather than bad ones. Selfish of him but true.

"I never saw him in the daytime," she said suddenly as if just realizing that fact for the first time. She laughed slightly, the sound hollow. "But I guess it wouldn't have made any difference if I had noted that fact. Thinking someone is a vampire isn't one's first suspicion, is it?"

Sebastian shook his head. Not until after the fact, no.

"As the end of the week neared, Donatello became more insistent that I needed to meet him away from my home. He told me he wanted to be alone, where no one could find us."

"And you went."

She nodded, still staring out at the room.

"Where did he take you?"

"We agreed to meet in the woods on my parents' estate. It was private, and I knew my parents would never go there, but it was still close enough if I had second thoughts and wanted to leave, then I could." She took a deep breath, and if possible, her complexion grew even paler. "Or so I thought."

Sebastian squeezed her fingers. They were freezing and stiff like icicles against his palm.

"Once in the woods, Donatello started acting so strange. Not at all like the man who'd charmed me for the week before. He was aggressive and... " she took a breath, and Sebastian could see she was starting to panic at the memory.

"Mina, baby, don't. If it hurts too much, you don't have to talk about this."

She turned to him, and for the first time since she started the story she really seemed to register him beside her. Unshed tears made her eyes sparkle like sapphires. The pain there nearly made Sebastian gnash his teeth. He wanted to kill this Donatello. Rip him to shreds.

"I-I need to tell this," she whispered.

He nodded.

"It started to rain. Pouring rain." She shivered as if she could feel the rain now. "I told him that we should go back. Wait for another night. He laughed at me and told me that a little rain wasn't going to stop his plans. He'd waited as long as he was going to for me. He pushed me up against a tree, holding me there. I screamed, even though I knew no one would hear. I fought, but he was very strong. Of course, I didn't know how strong and that I didn't stand even the slightest chance of escape."

She took another gulping breath, talking quickly as if she had to get the story out as fast as she possibly could.

"His touches were brutal and degrading. I thought he planned to rape me, but that wasn't the plan. That wasn't his interest."

Sebastian felt his muscles relax just a little at her words. He knew what had happened to her had been violent, and had ultimately taken her human life. But he couldn't bear to think of this monster violating her that way, too.

"We'd brought a lamp with us, and I remember him grabbing it and holding it up to his face. His beautiful features were gone, replaced by a hideous, distorted mask, pointed, razor-sharp teeth, glowing eyes."

Sebastian paused at her description. Glowing eyes? Vampires didn't have glowing eyes. When a vampire got ready to bite, their features did change and their pupils dilated until the eyes looked totally black. They only glowed in the movies. She must have distorted that memory, the attacker becoming something of fiction.

"I remember thinking that this couldn't be happening and that I was going to die." Mina's voice broke, and Sebastian forgot about the strange description of his cruel vampire.

"Mina." Sebastian couldn't stop himself; he caught her around the waist, lifting her easily onto his lap. She was stiff against him, but she didn't struggle to get away.

If she had, he would have released her. He didn't want to be anything like this asshole she was describing. He never wanted her to think she was being forced to do anything against her will again. Never.

"He told me that he was going to kill me." She took another breath. "But then he pretended to ponder the idea. He told me that he did rather like me, and he'd let me go. All I had to do was agree to let him cross me over. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I would have agreed to anything. Anything to get away from him, to go home. I just wanted to go home."

Sebastian hugged her to his chest like a child, wishing he'd been there. That he could have protected her.

"I remember screaming yes, he could cross me over, then I don't remember much after that. Just pain. Extreme pain. Then blackness. When I came to, I was lying in the mud and he was gone. It was early morning, overcast, pouring down rain. I remember the smell of the ocean being so overwhelming that I nearly vomited. Of course, I didn't realize that was because I'd changed. That I was now undead, and every sensation was overwhelmingly intense."

The vampire had just left her. Suddenly, her lack of understanding about herself made some sense. Although he still had no idea how she hadn't learned anything in the past hundred years. And why would a vampire cross over a mortal and just leave them? It made no sense. Why hadn't the vampire just killed her?

"Somehow, I managed to get home," she continued. "I remember stumbling into my house, yelling for my parents. But they didn't come for me. They couldn't leave their guests. They couldn't reveal what happened to the world's elite. The servants hurried me away to my room. My parents didn't even come see me until the next day. Once all the guests had left. "

Sebastian heard her voice crack, and he pulled her tight against him, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head, wanting desperately to take away her pain, even as he seethed over her parents' cruelty. In their own way, in a worse way, they had been as vicious as the vampire.

She fell silent then. Not until he felt her tiny trembles did he realize she was crying.

"Mina," he murmured against her hair. "I'm so sorry."

She didn't answer; she just nestled against him as if she wanted to burrow into his skin. He held her, whispering to her, not even sure what he was saying, just knowing he wanted to take away her pain. He wanted to protect her.

He'd suspected her fear had been based around sex, since she had panicked whenever they'd gotten intimate, but that wasn't it. Was she simply scared of him because he was a vampire? Did the act of kissing and making love remind her of the moments leading up to her attack? He still wasn't sure.

And he still didn't understand how she could have survived. Left alone with no understanding why or how she'd changed. He didn't think her parents would have been too accepting of what she'd become. Had they even known? Had they believed?

"Mina, I know you're upset, but I have to ask this."

She nodded, not lifting her head from his chest.

"How did you survive? What happened after that night?"

She was silent for a moment, then she pulled in a breath that seemed to shudder her whole body. "I-I had no idea what was happening. All I knew was I couldn't stand the light. It hurt and felt heavy on my skin. I was starving, but I couldn't keep food down. I remember feeling crazed like a caged animal."

Sebastian nodded. That crazed feeling was what happened without blood. It did make a vampire almost insane.

"My parents assumed I'd gone mad, believing I'd been sexually assaulted. I told them over and over what happened, but, of course, they didn't believe me. They brought in doctors, who also didn't understand what was wrong with me. They understood what their tests were saying-my temperature far below normal, no heartbeat. And they certainly couldn't name my ailment. And I just grew more and more insane. Finally, one day... "

She stopped-hiding her face against his shirt as if she couldn't bear to recall the memory, much less talk about it.

Sebastian rocked her. "It's okay."

"I was alone with one of the servants, a young girl, only about sixteen or so." She shuddered again, and Sebastian knew where this conversation was going. Had Mina killed the girl?

"I didn't kill her," she answered as if she'd heard his silent question. "But I did attack her. Bit her."

She took another deep, almost gulping breath as though the memory sickened her.

"That very night my parents had me institutionalized."

Sebastian closed his eyes, horror-struck at the idea of her in an asylum. Alone. Scared. He didn't know how she survived. Many couldn't have, without the added fact that she couldn't possibly understand what she'd become. Not fully.

"I was there for years. I don't know how long. Occasionally I'd be moved to another institution. This went on for... " She shrugged. "I don't know."