“Anyway, you, on the other hand, are not a dunce. Even with literally no education, in a few short years of listening with absolutely no participation, you absorbed what I was trying to teach Edward like a sponge. And I bet you did it without even trying. Didn’t you?”

“I just listened.”

“Exactly…you listened. You didn’t just hear what I was saying. You processed it like your mother processed her berry preserves. You ground it all up, strained it through that brain of yours, and out came comprehension.”

Bennett lifted her chin ever so slightly, tilting her head to the side as she looked back at Max.

“I see by the look on your face, you understand what I’m saying.”

“What if I do? What’s this all about? What do you want from me?”

“What I want is something I can’t get from anyone else who lives under my roof,” Max said, crossing his legs. “Tell me, do you know why I was trying to teach Edward?”

“Because you’re smart, and he’s not.”

“Go on,” Max said, keeping his eyes fixed on Bennett.

“You like to read, and you like to talk about what you read, and you want someone to talk with.”

“Fascinating how you said with instead of to.”

“I don’t think you like to talk, just to talk. There has to be a point.”

Max’s mouth fell open. “Christ, you are smart, and that kind of smart isn’t something you’re taught. It’s something you’re born with.”

“So?”

“So, I’m going to put myself out on a very long and slender branch, and risk ridicule from not only my equals but my subordinates as well.”

“What’s a subordinate?”

“Someone below my status, of lower class or position, like a servant or one of my coven. A coven is a group, by the way.”

“A group of what?”

Max took a moment while he considered the question. “We call ourselves vampires, a word taken from the folklore of the Kingdom of Hungary. We are immortal. I was born in 1480, and as you can see, I haven’t aged. I still appear as I did the day I was given this curse. I was thirty-six at the time. My kind is strong, nearly invincible, and unless our heads are taken, or our hearts are pierced, we heal, and we do it rapidly. Our only other enemy is the sun. If it touches our skin, we burn; therefore, we are creatures of the night, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Bennett’s eyes traveled to the shuttered window across the way. “Yes.”