“And the people at Eagleton never bothered to fill you in, huh?”
“Not so much.”
“There’s a lot to it, but the simple thing is that most vampires live in groups. Usually, vampires who are close friends will sort of bond together. Sometimes they find a mate. Most vampires don’t mate with a single person. They more mate with a group. Like you’ll have three vampire ladies who mate with a male. In your case, you have three vampire males who have found a human.”
“How do you know it’s your mate?”
“You just know.”
“That seems a little...easy.”
“It’s anything but. They’ve been waiting over a hundred years for you, love. Trust me, they’ve searched. When you were born, they all sort of felt it. They just had this feeling in their guts that you were the one.” She looks at me like this is the most incredibly magical and wonderful thing she’s ever heard, and it makes me feel...strong.
Important.
“They could feel that?”
“Oh yeah.”
We walk a little bit more, but I’m silent as I think about what she’s said. Could what Abigail is saying be true?
Could the vampires really just have had a feeling about me?
Could they really have just had an idea about me?
“Have you ever felt the calling of a mate?” I ask her. It’s a personal question, and it’s probably not one I should be asking Abigail. We don’t know each other that well, after all, but somehow, I can’t help myself. I want to know.
I need to know.
Abigail looks at me and nods shortly, curtly.
“What happened?” I ask. Obviously, she doesn’t have a mate now. Something must have happened.
“You really aren’t as shy as everyone thinks you are, huh?” Abigail looks at me. “All right, I’ll tell you. He died.”
“How?”
“He got old,” she shrugs. “After he passed, the other vampires I shared him with...well, we all sort of fell apart after that.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” she says before I can say anything else. “There’s nothing worse than someone saying they’re sorry.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Good. Don’t.”
“Abigail, it’s not fair what happened to you,” I point out. We’re walking through what seems like a sort of maze. We stop as we reach a beautiful fountain. It’s tall, and it’s lovely, and it’s the kind of place you can really lose yourself in.
We sit on the side of the fountain and look at the water.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” She asks, looking up at me.
“We never get to have a fair life?”
“We never get to have a fair life.”
Abigail reaches for the water and swirls it with her long, pointy fingers. She looks at the water, but there’s no reflection there. At least I know that some of the myths I’ve heard about vampires are true. Not the sun thing, apparently. We’re in the sun right now and she is wholly unaffected.