“Then it is good you will suffer none of those things again,” Gia said with amusement.
“Yeah,” Holly agreed and realized it was true. Well, if what they were telling her was true, it was. She’d never be down and miserable with illness again. It was a pleasant prospect.
Gia smiled and pointed out, “Your nausea has passed.”
Holly lowered her head briefly to concentrate on the sensations in her body and realized she was right. The nausea had passed.
“Can you stand?”
“I think so,” she murmured and did with Gia’s help. Once upright, she took several deep breaths and then grimaced and said, “Sorry. I don’t usually have such a weak stomach, but those memories were just . . .”
“Gruesome?” Gia suggested.
Holly wrinkled her nose and nodded and so did Gia.
“I have seen a lot in my eight hundred years, but I would have to agree, they were among the worst.”
“Eight hundred?” Holly asked with amazement.
Gia nodded and grinned. “I don’t look a day over seven hundred, hmmm?”
Holly snorted. “More like seventeen . . . years not hundred.”
“You are good for my ego,” Gia said with a chuckle. “I think we should be friends.”
Holly smiled faintly at the comment. She was pretty sure she’d like that. She didn’t really have girlfriends. The only friends she had were Bill and Elaine, and they were “couple friends.” Bill worked with James and they went out as couples, doing couple things; dinner and a movie, dinner and a play, dinner and a concert and so on. Bill and James had become good friends, but she and Elaine hadn’t really bonded. Holly blamed that on herself. Her less than normal childhood had hampered her somewhat socially and she was often awkward or silent in such situations. It made it difficult to gain friends. It would be nice to have one, especially one who understood her new and special needs. Cripes, she was a vampire. The words echoed in her head, sounding as inconceivable now as they had the first time she’d acknowledged it. She was a vampire. Nosferatu. Satan spawn. A bloodsucker.
“Please, Holly. You have to start thinking of us as immortals. I do not think I can take much more of this vampire and Nosferatu nonsense,” Gia said, her voice pained as she urged her out of the bathroom and back along the hall toward the kitchens. “We are not cursed and soulless. You are alive. Deal with it.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just . . . I mean we suck blood.”
“We need extra blood to survive,” Gia agreed. “So does a hemophiliac. Would you call them Nosferatu?”
“That’s different,” Holly protested.
“Is it?” Gia asked quietly.
“Yes, we have fangs . . . and they have a disease,” Holly pointed out. “While you—I mean we,” she corrected herself quickly and then frowned. “What exactly does make us vampires? Is it a disease for us too? It must be, Justin passed it to me in his blood.” She stopped walking as she recalled, “He said something about nanos at my house. How do they tie into it?”
“I think I’ll leave that up to Justin to explain to you,” Gia said as she urged her to continue on into the kitchen.
Justin was on his feet, watching for their return, Holly noted, and wondered if he’d just been standing there the whole time they’d been gone. Not that it had been that long, just a few minutes, still . . .
“How are you feeling?” he asked with concern, doing a strange sort of shuffle. He started to move forward as if to approach her, his hands rising, but then caught himself back and dropped his hands to his sides again as if he didn’t dare get too close.
“Don’t worry, I don’t have puke breath. I didn’t get sick in the end,” she assured him, thinking that must be the reason he avoided getting too near.
“Good,” he muttered and then glanced around briefly before returning his gaze to hers and asking, “Are you hungry? I mean for food,” he added quickly. “I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” Decker said.
“And me,” Anders added.
“You boys have eaten three times already today,” Gia said with a shake of the head. “I swear, you three are as bad as my uncle and cousins. They are always hungry too.”
“Wait until you meet your life mate, Gia. You’ll understand then,” Anders said with a shrug.
When that brought a snort from the woman, Decker assured her, “You will. Besides, it’s breakfast time.”
“You mean dinnertime,” Holly said quietly.
Gia laughed and moved toward the refrigerator. “No, he means breakfast, piccola. We sleep during the day as a rule. If Lucian hadn’t arrived this morning and kept the three of us up all day until he left, we’d all be sleeping, or just waking up.”
“So you can’t go out in sunlight?” Holly asked.
“We can,” Gia assured her, frowning at the contents of the refrigerator. “But it means we need more blood so we avoid it.” Closing the refrigerator door, she turned to say apologetically. “There is nothing left to eat. Vincent knows I do not eat, so did not leave much and what he did leave is now gone thanks to you three.”
“We can go out for something to eat,” Justin said quietly.
“That is best, and you perhaps should stop and get groceries on your way back,” Gia said, turning to head for the door. “Have fun, piccola. I’m to bed for a nap. Wake me when you get back if you want to talk.”
“Why does she keep calling me piccola?” Holly asked the moment the other woman was out of earshot. “What does it mean?”
“ ‘Little one,’ ” Justin answered.
“It can mean that,” Decker agreed, “But it also means ‘young one.’ It’s a term of affection. Gia must like you.”
“She hardly knows me,” Holly said dryly.
“She can read your mind,” Anders pointed out quietly. “She probably knows you better than people who have been in your life for years. We all do.”
“Except me,” Justin said with a scowl. “I can’t read her.”
“Except Bricker,” Anders allowed.
“Oh,” Holly murmured and immediately began to worry about what might be in her thoughts. Just how well could they all read her? Did she have to consciously think of something for them to read it? Or could they pluck out thoughts and memories from her mind like a harpist picked strings, all of them visible and available and there for the plucking?
“Between being a new turn and—” Decker’s gaze slid to Justin. “Other things, you will be very readable to most immortals. Younger immortals will only be able to read your surface thoughts. Anyone over three or four hundred years old, though, should be able to read some of the thoughts not on the surface unless you use tricks to block them.”
“There are tricks to stop you from reading me?” Holly asked with interest and when all three men nodded, she asked, “What are they?”
“That is part of your training,” Decker said.
“You have other more important things to learn first, though,” Anders added firmly.
“Right,” Holly muttered with resentment. To her, preventing their reading her was the most important thing. Of course, they wouldn’t think so. No doubt being able to read her came in handy. For instance, she could hardly plan an escape with them able to read her every thought.
“True,” Decker said with amusement, obviously having read the thought she’d had. Standing, he crossed toward her adding, “Come on. I need food before I faint . . . and Justin can explain about nanos on the way to the restaurant,” he added coaxingly.
Holly wasn’t hungry, but supposed if she wanted answers she’d best go with them, so didn’t protest when Decker took her arm and turned her toward the door. At least they weren’t going to keep her locked up in the house like a prisoner.
“You are not a prisoner,” Decker assured her.
“Unless you try to escape,” Anders added, stepping up to her other side.