Lucia continued holding Amelia’s hand and said, “Everyone who covets our secret thinks it is some special incantation, and they have spent centuries trying to work it out for themselves. Gilbert, Victorija’s father, used the best witches he could find, but he never could work out the simple truth.”

“Which is?” Amelia said.

“Vampires are neither dead nor alive, and to allow them to procreate, they need someone whose life force is so strong it will allow them to make the next generation. As the matriarch of the clan, they draw life from me.”

Dead vampires, and vampire babies. Amelia felt like her brain was at its limit of what she could grasp from this new world. “So there is a spell tying your life force to every Debrek?”

“Quite so, my dear. A very, very long time ago, I was a young witch and I met a brash vampire named Cosimo Debrek, Byron’s great-great-grandfather. The Debreks were very different back then. All they were concerned with was feeding off humans, both by blood and financially, through their burgeoning banking dynasty.”

“They didn’t believe in consent then?” Amelia said.

“Not at all,” Lucia said. “Cosimo pursued me relentlessly. I have no idea why, but I was not going to have a relationship with a vampire who used humans as food, and killed on a whim.”

“No one could push you into anything you didn’t want, Lucia,” Sera butted in, “even an ancient powerful vampire.”

Byron chuckled, and looked at Amelia. “Quite like someone I know and love.”

“Yes indeed, and quite like you, Byron. Cosimo didn’t give up on me until I fell in love with him. Through our conversations and his love of me, he realized the wrong his clan was doing by taking blood without consent. He promised me the Debrek clan would always take by consent, as long as the clan existed, if I would marry him,” Lucia said.

Amelia smiled. “And you did. That’s so romantic.”

Lucia took a sip of tea, and said, “It wasn’t as easy as that at the time. My coven was horrified that I married into a vampire clan, and Cosimo faced resistance about taking by consent, but we proved them wrong.”

“And how did you have your children? Did your coven know?” Amelia asked.

“No, that was something no one knew. We searched the world over trying to find an answer because we both wanted a child so desperately, but how can you create life from death?”

“But you found a way.”

Lucia nodded. “A way, but a painful one at that. My ancestors, who give my coven power, made us an offer. The Debreks could procreate and grow stronger with each passing generation, on two conditions. One, that they never waver from taking by consent, and respecting human life…”

Lucia’s voice wavered with emotion, and Amelia saw tears in her eyes. “And two?”