"How old are you," she whispered.

I lowered my head. "I have lived more than four thousand years."

She blinked and nodded slowly. "And what about...what about what they say about you. That you have to drink the blood of virgins to survive?"

I met her eyes, smiling slightly. "Living blood. Be it that of virgins or sheep. And I don't need to kill in order to feed, little 'Beta. I tasted of your blood last night - only a sip. And yet you live."

She lowered her eyes from mine. "It was a sensation I...I never..."

"I know. I felt it, too." I stroked her golden hair, remembering, my blood heating, my hunger growing.

"Is it always like that?"

"No. At first I didn't know why the sensations of blood sharing were so exaggerated with you. But I think I understand now."

"Then make me understand."

I nodded. "Most humans cannot become what I am, Elisabeta. Only a select few. It's something about the blood, something different, and unique. Among my kind we call those unique ones The Chosen. We sense them, are drawn to them inexplicably and irresistibly. There is a powerful attraction between the Undead and The Chosen. "

"On both sides?"

"Yes," I whispered, my fingertips stroking her cheek.

"And what of my illness? We share that, as well?"

I nodded. "The Chosen always grow weak and sick. They die young unless they are changed. For you, death is near - few months, perhaps weeks away. I don't want to let it take you."

"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know if I can bear to live a life such as you've described to me. I don't know if I can..."

"Let me show you how it can be, between us. Let me show you, Elisabeta. Only then can you decide."

"I..." She looked up at me, afraid and yet curious, and aching for something she did not understand.

"Let me make love to you, 'Beta."

"I want that so much. But - you won't change me?"

"I vow it to you. I will not change you."

"Then yes, prin meu. Yes."

I kissed her then. I pressed my mouth to hers and tasted her lips, slid my tongue between them to sample the moistness inside. And she gasped and was stiff and tense.

I lifted my head. "I can make it easier for you," I told her.

"How?"

"I can take the fear and the inhibitions from your mind by commanding it with my own. Would you like that, Elisabeta?"

She blinked in surprise. "To surrender to you? My very mind?"

"Yes. Surrender to me. Your mind. Your body. Your soul." I nuzzled her neck, her shoulder, and lowered her body into the deep grasses. "Say yes, Elisabeta. Give yourself over, just for a little while.

Trust me."

"I do trust you."

"Then..." I sat up and left her lying there. I probed into her mind with the power of my own, and took what I had been asking her to give me. "You have no fear of me, Elisabeta. You know I will never harm you. You trust me utterly."

"Yes," she whispered, and the fear and hesitation fled from her eyes, from her mind.