Tai nodded. That was it. No, he didn’t want to die. Not at all, not when an attack was at its very worst, not ever. But if he had to choose between himself and humans who couldn’t protect themselves fromhim…
“You need not choose,” Peter said, as if his power as a relic included telepathy. “You won’t hunt them or take them. You won’t slake from them.”
“How can you know that?” Tai whispered. Now he was scared of hope.
“Having lived this long, I’ve got an acute sense of people, what’s knit into their souls. One of your thickest threads is compassion, Tai. And you’re incredibly strong for your age, stronger than you know. Those two things together will never let you slake from them.” His grip on Tai’s shoulders tightened. “But you’re holding shame. You’ve held it so long, it’s become a thread too.”
Tai nodded. Shame was certainly part of him. Compassion and strength? He hoped so.
“I want you to trust this, if you trust nothing else I say today,” Peter said. “You won’t harm them. You need not keep living with that fear.”
“I feel weak sometimes.” He shut his eyes against the admission, but then he opened them again. He needed to see Peter’s reaction.
The brightness of Peter’s eyes banked to a typical vampire glimmer. He gave Tai’s shoulder a firm clap, then let him go. His voice receded too, his choice of words casual again, no longer so formal and old. “We all feel weak sometimes, Tai, but you and I, we’re mighty. We win a war every time our genes try to ambush us. And it’s not something we asked for. It’s not our fault.”
Tai tried to listen, to believe despite the voice of his father in his head.
“Claire said I’m strong,” he said at last, and his voice sounded small, almost childlike.
“Claire’s brilliant,” Peter said.
Tai’s laugh was broken but real. “She really is.”
“Somebody else called you weak.”
Not much of a stretch to that conclusion, but it pierced anyway. Tai nodded. Weak. Defective. Vile. “Sometimes I wonder if…if I’ll last my full lifespan. A thousand years of this. Iwant to make it, Peter, but sometimes I think having to fight so hard…it’s too much. It’s going to shorten my years by at least a century.”
“That’s what the tools are for, kid. You don’t have to muscle through it on sheer willpower; in fact, if you trythat, you really might steal years from your life. Look, I’ve been bundling up in blankets and slaking as often as my metabolism dictates since before the signing of the Constitution, and if you dare call me a weakling for it, I’ll take you down to the ground.”
Sparring, training, speed and agility—forget all of it. Tai would not want to fight a vampire as old as this one. Peter was anything but weak.
And there it was. The whole point he’d been trying to make since Tai got here.
“And hey,” Peter said, “you’ve got tools I never dreamed of back then. A thermostat built into the wall of my house? Electricity and self-heating blankets? Get out of here.”
Tai laughed, then shook his head. “Peter, I…I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I can tell you how. Take my tips and use them. When you’re having a hard time, call me. Stop trying to muscle through this alone.”
“Okay,” Tai said.
“And one more thing. Find a way to put down the shame.”
“That one might take longer.” But oh, how he wanted to achieve everything Peter asked of him. He’d never felt so hopeful about his condition, never in his life.
“Hope is good,” Peter said quietly. He must be able to sense this too, rising in Tai like a crescendo of sweet strings and flutes.
“Yeah.” Tai swiped at his cheeks, sure he’d find tears, but his eyes were dry. “I want to get there. I think maybe I can. To a place that’s not so hard.”
“You’ve got a millennium, kid. Start now and you’ll get to that place before you know it, get to enjoy the rest of your life.”
“With Claire,” Tai said, then laughed. “I guess that’s presumptuous, given we’ve been dating for all of a month.”
“Nah.” Peter gave Tai’s shoulder a light shove. “When she talks about you, she’s talking about the man she loves. So do your part. Get to work.”
Tai had never felt more ready for hard work. For hopeful work.
Nineteen
