“Yes,” I said, because I had to be honest. “Because we had the beginning of something good going, and I may have made a huge mistake sending him away. But I’ve never been seriously involved with two men at the same time, and I’m not starting now. Right now, that man is you.”

“You love me,” he said, and he nodded.

“I appreciate you,” I said cautiously. “I have big lust for you. I enjoy your company.”

“There’s a difference,” Eric said.

“Yes, there is. But you don’t see me bugging you to spell out how you feel about me, right? Because I’m pretty damn sure I wouldn’t like the answer. So maybe you better rein it in a little yourself.”

“You don’t want to know how I feel about you?” Eric looked incredulous. “I can’t believe you’re a human woman. Women always want to know how you feel about them.”

“And I’ll bet they’re sorry when you tell them, huh?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “If I tell them the truth.”

“That’s supposed to put me in a confiding mood?”

“I always tell you the truth,” he said. And there wasn’t a trace of that smile left on his face. “I may not tell you everything I know, but what I tell you . . . it’s true.”

“Why?”

“The blood exchange has worked both ways,” he said. “I’ve had the blood of many women. I’ve had almost utter control over them. But they never drank mine. It’s been decades, maybe centuries since I gave any woman my blood. Maybe not since I turned Pam.”

“Is this the general policy among vampires you know?” I wasn’t quite sure how to ask what I wanted to know.

He hesitated, nodded. “For the most part. There are some vampires who like to take total control over a human . . . make that human their Renfield.” He used the term with distaste.

“That’s from Dracula, right?”

“Yes, Dracula’s human servant. A degraded creature . . . Why someone of Dracula’s eminence would want so debased a man as that . . .” Eric shook his head disgustedly. “But it does happen. The best of us look askance at a vampire who makes servant after servant. The human is lost when the vampire assumes too much control. When the human goes completely under, he isn’t worth turning. He isn’t worth anything at all. Sooner or later, he has to be killed.”

“Killed! Why?”

“If the vampire who’s assumed so much control abandons the Renfield, or if the vampire himself is killed . . . the Renfield’s life is not worth living after that.”

“They have to be put down,” I said. Like a dog with rabies.

“Yes.” Eric looked away.

“But that’s not going to happen to me. And you won’t ever turn me.” I was absolutely serious.