The Heart of Talan

Approximately 91,000 words.

Beautiful Talan Ashari has existed for centuries as a wealthy vampire, using human beings for food, sex, and as servants. Young professional Jessi Carpenter is nursing a broken heart when Talan, posing as Doctor Ashari, comes into her life and sweeps her off her feet with Old World flattery and irresistible charm. Jessi thinks she’s found a pleasurable distraction from her pain. Talan thinks she’s taken a new captive, to be used and then disposed of, as her past lovers have been. But something about Jessi is different, and Talan finds herself vulnerable in a way she hasn’t been since her long-forgotten days as a human being. After her feelings for Jessi catapult her back into memories she’d forced herself to forget, Talan has to make an agonizing decision.

“She bedded down with one of the stablehands.” Talan sighed again. “She often romped with him when I was asleep, or out hunting. I might never have known, so clever was she. But he got her with child.”
Jessi drew in a sharp breath but said nothing.
“I am afraid that I lost my temper when I realized what had happened. She was mine. She enjoyed everything that I had to offer her. She pretended to love me, but then she betrayed me.” Talan closed her eyes for a moment. She had known great affection for Tansy, and it still pained her to remember that awful night.
“You—you didn’t kill her. Tell me you didn’t kill her.”
“I . . . frightened her. When I noticed the change in her body, I forced her to confess to me. I became enraged. She fled from me. She ran down the stairs and her feet became tangled in her skirts. She fell. She broke her neck, and was dead by the time I reached her.”
Talan could hardly hear Jessi’s whispered question. “What about the baby?”
“It died with her.” Talan took a deep breath. “The stablehand also died. Later.”
Jessi hugged herself, rocking back and forth. “You killed him.”
“Yes.” Talan watched Jessi carefully. She was reacting as any human being would. Her face was pale and stricken, and she was trembling violently. Yes, she was certainly sobered up. “You think me heartless.”
Jessi stood frozen. She did not deny it.
“Jessi. If I were truly heartless, this room would not exist. I keep these precious things so that I will never forget the humans who have given me such joy over the years. I visit my darlings often. I regret the loss of each and every one.”
Showing surprising spirit, Jessi turned to her and cried, “How can you say that? You said these are the ones who ‘displeased’ you. You killed them, didn’t you? They didn’t behave, and you killed them! You’re a murderer!”
Talan raised Jessi’s hand to her mouth and kissed it. “Ah, little one, you delight me with your spirit and your intelligence, even as you vex me with your resistance. I am no murderer. Only a human being can be a murderer. I, Jessi, am not a human being. Is a cat that kills a mouse a murderer? Is a wolf that takes a rabbit a murderer? No. They are merely being true to their nature.”
“And now you want me for a mouse to play with? And I have no choice about this? Or I’ll end up here, too?”
Talan smiled. “You always have a choice, dear one.” She took one of Jessi’s fingers into her mouth and sucked it, gently, gazing into those wonderful green-flecked eyes. She noted, with great pleasure, the involuntary shiver that rippled through Jessi’s body. “And I think you will choose wisely.”
“If I really had a choice, you would let me go,” Jessi gasped, trying in vain to pull her hand away.
Talan chuckled and let go of her. “About staying here with me, you have no choice,” she said. “That is true. But you may choose whether your time with me will be pleasant, or horrific. That, my dear, is entirely up to you.”