Finally, just when I was going to apologize for asking, Pam said, “I think I was born for this.” The faint light from the dashboard illuminated her perfectly symmetrical face. “I would have been a dismal wife, a terrible mother. The part of me that has taken to slashing the throats of my enemies would have surfaced if I’d remained human. I wouldn’t have killed anyone, I suppose, because that wasn’t on my list of things I could do, when I was human. But I would have made my family very miserable; you can be sure of that.”

“You’re a great vampire,” I said, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She nodded. “Yes. I am.”

We didn’t speak again until we reached Eric’s house. Oddly enough, he’d bought a place in a gated community with a strict building code. Eric liked the daytime security of the gate and the guard. And he liked the fieldstone house. There weren’t too many basements in Shreveport, because the water level was too high, but Eric’s house was on a slope. Originally, its downstairs was a walk-in from the back patio. Eric had had that door pulled out and the wall made solid, so he had a great place to sleep.

Until we’d become blood bonded, I’d never been to Eric’s house.

Sometimes it was exciting being so closely yoked with Eric, and sometimes it made me feel trapped. Though I could scarcely believe it, the sex was even better now that I’d recovered, at least in large part, from the attack. At this moment, I felt like every molecule in my body was humming because I was near him.

Pam had a garage-door opener, and she pressed it now. The door swung up to reveal Eric’s car. Other than the gleaming Corvette, the garage was spotless: no lawn chairs, no bags of grass seed or half-empty paint cans. No stepladder, or coveralls, or hunting boots. Eric didn’t need any of those accoutrements. The neighborhood had lawns, pretty lawns, with rigidly planted and mulched flower beds—but a lawn-care service trimmed every blade of grass there, pruned every bush, raked every leaf.

Pam got a kick out of closing the garage door once we were inside. The kitchen door was locked, and she used a key so we could pass from the garage into the kitchen. A kitchen is largely useless to a vampire, though a little refrigerator is necessary for the synthetic blood, and a microwave is handy to heat it to room temperature. Eric had bought a coffeemaker for me, and he kept some food in the freezer for whatever human was in the house. Lately, that human had been me.

“Eric!” I called, when we came through the door. Pam and I took off our shoes, which was one of Eric’s house rules.