Born to Bite by Lynsay Sands Page A

and questions next. It seemed to her that whoever might be behind the deaths had been in Armand’s life a long time, and also had to be relatively close by. They were halfway through the meal when she finally asked, “So is there anyone else I should know about who comes to the farm besides Mrs. Ramsey?”
    Armand was silent for so long she thought he hadn’t heard her question, but then he said, “Paul and Mrs. Ramsey were the only mortals who came around. Of course, Paul won’t be a problem now.”
    “Will you replace him?” she asked curiously, thinking he’d had even less sleep than she that day as he took over the work Paul normally did. From what she could tell he hadn’t gone to bed at all.
    “Not right away,” Armand decided, taking a sip of wine. He swallowed it and then added, “I’ll wait a couple weeks.”
    Until she was gone, Eshe suspected. Lucian had told him she would be there for about two weeks, and she supposed he wanted to wait until she was gone to bring in a new mortal. There would be less chance of his discovering what they were that way. But it also meant he wasn’t yet thinking of her being in his life longer than that. The fact rather bothered her.
    Eshe took a sip of her own wine and forced her mind back to the job at hand, asking, “What about immortals? You must have visitors on occasion. Old friends you’ve known since England, or new ones you’ve made here? Mrs. Ramsey mentioned an Agnes and John?”
    Armand nodded as he cut into his own steak. “Agnes and John come around once in a while, usually once a week or so to see how I am and check in.”
    “Check in?” she asked curiously.
    He smiled wryly. “I’m the only family they have. They were Susanna’s brother and sister, mortal like she was until they were turned. The rest of their family has long passed on, and of course Susanna is gone as well. So I’m all they have.”
    “How were they turned?” Eshe asked with surprise, and then her eyes widened with alarm. “You didn’t turn them, did you?”
    “No, of course not,” Armand said with a laugh. “Brother or not, Lucian would have had my head had I gone against our laws.”
    “Oh.” Eshe let out a relieved breath, but asked with confusion, “So did they turn out to be life mates for other immortals?”
    “No.” Armand shook his head on a sigh and set his knife and fork down to pick up his wine. After taking a drink, he explained, “Susanna was very fond of her brother and sister. She, not unnaturally, didn’t want to leave them behind, and introduced them to every un-attached immortal who attended our wedding, hoping they would turn out to be life mates for one of them. But, of course, we were a lot more spread out then. There were very few who were close enough to attend.”
    Eshe nodded in acknowledgment. Before the advent of blood banks they had been forced to feed off mortals. Essentially, they’d had to bite their friends and neighbors or servants and peasants. Having too many of their kind in an area had meant more mortals in that area being fed on and had raised the risk of discovery. To avoid that, they had spread out across the land, allowing only one or two immortals to a good-sized area. It was how her father, Castor, had ended up in Africa and met her mother, his life mate.
    “I didn’t stop her from trying to find them mates,” Armand continued. “I knew it wasn’t likely, but felt sure that in time she’d resign herself to losing them to death.”
    “But she didn’t,” Eshe guessed.
    Armand shook his head. “She didn’t really get the chance to. Shortly after we were married, her sister, Agnes, became ill. I suspect now that it was leukemia, but it hadn’t been named back then. Susanna got word of her illness and traveled to the convent to visit her.”
    “Convent?” Eshe interrupted with surprise.
    “Yes. She was a nun,” he explained quietly.
    She felt her eyebrows rise at the knowledge that Susanna had been trying to find