Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [722]
“No. I came to Europe many years ago, to study music, actually.” Claire walked over to help the other woman retrieve a couple of extra pillows and a folded wool blanket. “I suppose I was very idealistic then, like many young people. As for me, I was torn between my love of the piano and my personal need to do something important with my life, like saving the world.”
“I’m not sure the world can be saved,” Danika said, turning a solemn blue gaze on her. “There’s so much corruption and tragedy everywhere you look. Good people die all the time, even the ones whose only faults are striving to do good work and make things better for others.”
Claire nodded. “My parents were those kind of people. My mother left a very comfortable life in New England to help bring clean water and medical supplies to a small country in Africa. She met my father, a young doctor from Zimbabwe, while she was working overseas. They fell in love almost instantly, but at that time, marriage wasn’t an easy thing to obtain for a white American woman and a black man from Africa. When my mother became pregnant with me, she returned to the States until I was born. My father stayed behind to continue his work and wait for us to come back to be a family. A few months later, conflict broke out in the region. My mother couldn’t bear to be away from him while the village they’d worked so hard to build up was being threatened by war. She went back to Africa, and within a month of her arrival they were both killed when rebel forces shot up their camp.”
“Oh, Claire.” Danika pulled her into a caring embrace. “How awful for you and the rest of your family. I’m so sorry.”
It had been a long time since she’d thought about losing her parents—a couple known to her only by pictures and stories her grandmother in Rhode Island had shared with her as she was growing up, parentless and different, yet a child of privilege in Newport’s high society. Now all her relatives in the States were gone. The house in Newport was still held in trust for her, cared for by a private staff who looked after the grounds and the basic maintenance of the place, but it had been nearly two decades since Claire had been back. She missed it suddenly, missed the feeling of truly being home.
Danika released her after a moment and attempted a lighter topic. “So, which of your goals did you end up pursuing?”
“Neither, in fact,” Claire admitted. “Not long after I arrived in Germany, I had my first run-in with one of the Breed. He was very young—a teenager at most. It was late at night, I was walking home from a concert by myself. I thought he wanted to steal my purse, but he was actually after something else. He was about to bite me when another Breed male stopped him.”
“Andreas?” Danika guessed, smiling.
Claire shook her head. “No, not him. It was someone … else. Someone very important in Hamburg, although I didn’t know it at the time. He caught the scent of my blood when the other male knocked me to the ground and I skinned my knees. He realized right away that I was a Breedmate, so he drove the other vampire off and took me in as his ward. I didn’t meet Andreas until later.”
And, like her parents’ doomed relationship, she and Andre also fell instantly, impossibly, in love. She’d spent the past thirty years trying to forget him. Trying to convince herself that she wasn’t still in love with him after all this time.
“Such a long time to be kept apart. I know how difficult it is, being denied of the thing your heart craves the most,” Danika murmured somewhat absently
Claire swung an astonished look at her. “What… how did you know—”
The other Breedmate sucked in her breath. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to intrude on your thoughts.” She brought her index finger up to her temple. “My talent, I’m afraid. I don’t like to read thoughts, and to tell you the truth, most of the time I hate that I can. Unfortunately, since Conlan has been gone my talent is becoming unmanageable. I haven’t taken another mate, nor do I intend to, and without the regular intake of Conlan’s blood, my ability seems to