“Yes.” She fought tears. “My parents were really in love. You could see how much they meant to each other every time they touched. That was often. We were a happy family. She used to say meeting my father had been the best moment of her life, besides having her daughters. We had a lot of great times.” Memories of her childhood surfaced in her thoughts. “We laughed a lot.”

“Didn’t you ever notice anything strange about her?”

Dusti racked her brain. “She looked pretty young for her age. Everyone used to comment on it. Of course, it’s just in the genes. Bat and I get mistaken all the time for being in our early twenties.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-one, and Bat is thirty-three.”

“You don’t look it.” He paused. “You may have inherited the very slow aging process we possess.”

“What does that mean?”

“Vampires don’t age at all from the time they are turned. Lycans have a lifespan of about five hundred years.”

She couldn’t imagine. “Are you kidding me? How is that possible?”

“Vampires use blood to heal and survive. As long as they feed, it repairs most damage, including any from aging. Lycans heal much faster than humans. The same applies but they don’t need fresh blood. They just have to keep in good health by eating regularly and allowing the shift to happen from time to time. It would be as if a human refused to use their legs to stand and just sat around nonstop instead. Over time, it would make their bodies weaken.”

She let that sink in. “What about what you are? How long do you live?”

“We’re not sure.”

“How is that possible?”

“We’ve only been in existence for about two hundred years. We age slower than Lycans. “

“How do you know that?”

“Just meet a Lycan and a VampLycan born the same year. The Lycan will look a few years older than one of ours. It’s the best measure we’ve found so far. It’s estimated that we might live eight hundred years or so but that’s a guess. It would also depend on what traits are more dominant of the two. A mostly Vampire-blooded VampLycan will probably live longer than a mostly Lycan-blooded one.”

“My grandfather had gray hair when he visited us.”

“He probably dyed it and put on makeup to look aged before going into your world. He was playing a role for you and your sister. Some of us do that if we have dealings with the same humans long enough. We try to blend in and not raise suspicion.”

“What kind of dealings?”

He hesitated.

“Is it a secret or something?”

“No, I was thinking of a good example to use. There was a family who used to own some land by one of our borders. My father met them thirty years ago. They ended up moving away but kept ownership of the land. Two years ago they wanted to sell it, so they contacted my father and wanted him to meet them. He always makes it clear to surrounding human families that he’s interested if they’re ever willing to sell. He hasn’t aged in that time and they would have noticed. He had to pretend to be his own son.” Drantos chuckled lightly. “He didn’t want to wear makeup or dye his hair to appear older.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes. They sold the land to him and weren’t suspicious.”

She let that sink in. “I’d ask you how old you are but I’m afraid to know the answer. I don’t want to be grossed out if you’re super old, considering where your mouth happened to be earlier. Just tell me you weren’t born in the year eighteen hundred and something.”

He chuckled again. “I wasn’t.”

“I’m glad you think this is funny.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“No. Do you want to know how old I am?”

She shook her head. “I’ve had enough shocks for one day. You only appear to be about thirty.”

“We grow a bit faster than humans do as children but then it slows once we hit adolescence. Lycans tend to hit between the mid-twenties to low-thirties range and then the aging just seems to halt there for a few hundred years. We might be the same way. I’m older than the number you said I look but I was born in the nineteen hundreds. Are you warmer? You’re trembling less and your skin doesn’t feel as chilled.”

“You put off a lot of heat.”

“We run hotter. I wish you had gained that trait from your mother. I knew you hadn’t though when I saw how cold you became when the sun went down last night. In that regard, you’re totally human and need to be kept warm.”

The silence stretched between them. Dusti wasn’t sure what to say. She knew so little about Drantos except he certainly wasn’t at all similar to any guy she’d ever been interested in. She needed answers though to the questions relevant at the moment. The future seemed bleak.

“Are more of those…men going to come after us?”

“Not the ones who attacked Kraven and I.”

The tone of his voice, the sureness of it, made her heart stutter. “What does that mean? How can you be so sure?”

He adjusted his body into a more comfortable position and pulled her firmer against him, and continued to hedge. “We did what we had to.”

“What is that?”

“They won’t be coming after you again. At least not those three.”

Her eyes opened to pitch darkness. The grim tone of his voice finally gave her a hint. “You killed them?”

“Two died. One conceded. We had no choice, Dusti. They would have killed my brother and me if we hadn’t won in battle. That would have left you captured, taken to Decker, and he would have handed Bat over to Aveoth.”

She’d known deep inside that’s exactly what he’d meant. He’d killed to protect her.

A laugh burst from her, totally unexpected. Random, silly thoughts followed. She pictured trying to put that beast she’d seen into a coffin. It wouldn’t fit. That seemed funny to her, despite knowing it shouldn’t. It happened when she was under too much stress. It was as if twisted humor helped her cope.

“You find it funny that I had to take a life?” He sounded surprised.

“No. I think I’m having a breakdown of sorts. And I was just thinking that I couldn’t even get a guy to buy me flowers, and you killed for me. We haven’t even been out on a date yet.”