“Oh.” Ildaria flushed as she took back the phone. She wasn’t used to people reading her thoughts. Vasco, like herself, didn’t read people unless it was absolutely necessary. No one on the ship had. Or at least, no one had made it obvious that they did if they were reading others. Neither had Raffaele if he had read her while she was living with him and Jess, and Jess herself was too new a turn to be able to read anyone. Not that she could have read Ildaria. Younger immortals couldn’t read immortals that were older than them. As for Marguerite, as far as she knew her host hadn’t read her much since her arrival in her home. At least, she hadn’t said anything that gave away that she had read her. Until now, and Ildaria found her doing so a bit discomfiting.
“No, dear. I am not reading you. Not on purpose anyway. Your thoughts are just a bit loud at the moment,” Marguerite announced, moving back to her seat at the table.
“Loud?” Ildaria repeated uncertainly as she returned to her own seat.
“Hmmm.” Marguerite focused her attention on pouring more tea into both their cups, and waited until Ildaria had finished sending G.G. the pic of H.D., before commenting, “You obviously didn’t try to read G.G., did you?”
“I—No.” Ildaria glanced up from her phone with a small frown. “There was no need. G.G. isn’t a threat to me.”
“No, I agree. G.G. is not a threat to our kind,” Marguerite said at once as she pushed her teacup back to her.
“Right,” Ildaria murmured, doctoring her fresh tea with sugar and cream.
“Do you know the symptoms that an immortal experiences on meeting a life mate?” Marguerite asked as she lifted her cup to her lips.
Ildaria peered at her blankly. A life mate was something every immortal hoped to find. That being the case, the symptoms of meeting one were well known to their kind from a young age if they were born immortal, and shortly after turning if they were not born immortal. Or usually before they were turned if a life mate turned them. Of course, she knew what the symptoms were. She just didn’t understand why Marguerite was asking her that.
Clearing her throat, Ildaria finally said, “Si, of course. A return of the desire for, and pleasure in, those things that often leave an immortal between the first and second century of their lives,” she murmured, and then listed them off. “Food, drink, and sex topmost among them.”
Marguerite nodded. “What else?”
“Shared sexual dreams if they sleep within a certain distance,” she said now.
“And?”
“Experiencing each other’s pleasure when indulging in sexual relations,” she said a bit stiffly. “And then usually fainting or passing out at the end of a coupling. Although I’ve heard of cases where that doesn’t happen.”
Marguerite made a humming sound and nodded, but then waited expectantly.
Ildaria went through what she’d already said to see what she’d missed, and then added, “The inability to read or control the life mate.”
They both fell silent briefly, and then Marguerite said gently, “There’s one more symptom, dear.”
Ildaria started to shake her head, but then blinked. “Oh, si. Both life mates’ thoughts are easily read for the first year or two after finding their life mate, no matter their age.”
“Actually, it isn’t so much that they are easily read as the immortal’s ability to keep their thoughts private is usually hampered after finding a life mate. It’s almost as if they’re screaming their thoughts. Other immortals can’t help but hear them,” Marguerite corrected gently and then added, “Like you are presently doing.”
Ildaria stared at her blankly. “You think I’ve met my . . .”
When she fell silent, unable to finish the thought, Marguerite smiled faintly and lifted her cup before commenting, “G.G. is very handsome, is he not?”
Ildaria’s eyes widened as she watched Marguerite sip her tea. “G.G.?”
Marguerite raised her eyebrows. “You do not find him handsome?”
“I—” Ildaria hesitated, images of the man rising up in her mind. Looking serious, looking amused, cuddling H.D. . . . Yes, she’d thought him attractive. Adorable even. Especially with the little fur ball in his arms. Dogs and babies always made men more attractive.
“I think you should try to read him tomorrow, dear,” Marguerite said softly. “I suspect you will not be able to.”
Ildaria started to nod, but then stopped and asked with alarm, “What do I do if I can’t?”
“Ah.” Marguerite frowned and set her cup down. She stared down at it briefly and then sat back with a sigh. “If you cannot, then I suggest you walk softly. G.G. . . .” She paused to grimace, and then said, “G.G.’s parents were both mortal. His father died in a car accident when he was just a toddler of three. Things were tough for him and his mother for the next two years and then she met Robert Guiscard. They were life mates, and he of course, turned her. Unfortunately, G.G. witnessed his mother’s turn.”
“Oh, no,” Ildaria breathed. Going through the turn was not a pleasant experience. She remembered very little of her own. Most people didn’t recall it afterward. But she’d witnessed others during the throes of theirs and it was a terrible, agonizing experience to watch. If the one being turned was tied down, chained down, or otherwise restrained, they screamed, shrieked, and thrashed, trying to break free. During two of the ones she’d witnessed, the turnees had thrashed so wildly they’d broken bones in their wrists, arms, ankles, and legs, just elongating the experience. But if they weren’t restrained, they had been known to try to rip their own skin off or claw their eyes out in a desperate bid to end the agony.
Watching his mother go through that would have been more than traumatizing for a five-year-old child, Ildaria thought and shook her head with dismay. “How could they let him see that?”
“He was not supposed to. His mother, Mary, had asked her neighbor, who was also apparently a friend, to take him for the night. But Mary’s turning took longer than a night. Sometimes, it does,” she added gravely. “But Robert apparently did not realize that, or had not made it clear to Mary. She apparently told the neighbor that she would collect G.G. the next day. I gather her friend thought she meant in the morning, so when she hadn’t shown up by noon, the neighbor brought G.G. home, and heard the muffled screaming coming from inside. Unfortunately, she was a good enough friend that she had a key, and she opened the door, in a panic to help her friend. She told G.G. to wait by the door, but he followed her upstairs, arriving at the most inopportune time possible. Mary had just snapped the ropes Robert had used to bind her and was clawing her stomach open in a desperate attempt to end the pain.”
“Oh, God,” Ildaria breathed with horror.
Marguerite nodded. “Unfortunately, Robert was so distracted between attempting to restrain Mary again and trying to control the hysterical neighbor, that he was completely unaware of G.G.’s presence.” She sighed unhappily, and then said, “G.G. told me this some time ago. He said he wanted to run to his mother to comfort her, but she didn’t look like herself. Her face seemed to be boiling.”
Ildaria grimaced. She’d seen that on a turn a time or two. Usually on mortals who had acne or some other sort of scarring on their face. What young G.G. had thought was her face boiling, was the bioengineered nanos that made immortals what they were, working on removing the scarring and returning the skin to the perfect, unblemished complexion they’d been born with. It was their job. They’d been programmed with blueprints of both a mortal female and a mortal male at their peak condition, and their one directive was to return their host to that peak condition.
“Yes, but G.G. did not know that,” Marguerite said on a sigh, obviously catching her thoughts. “So he ran before he was noticed, not stopping until he was outside. I gather the neighbor found him in the front garden, simply standing, staring at nothing when Robert sent her below with her memory erased and the thought that she’d talked to Mary and had agreed to keep G.G. another day.”
Ildaria frowned. “Well, surely, once he was returned they read his mind, realized what had happened and erased . . .” Ildaria fell silent. If they’d erased the memory, he couldn’t have told Marguerite about it.
“No. They did not realize. When Mary approached G.G. in the garden, he jerked as if just waking up, and then raced away when she tried to grab his hand to take him home. He ran right out into the street, in front of a lorry. It couldn’t stop in time to avoid hitting him.”
“Oh, sweet heavens above,” Ildaria breathed.
Marguerite nodded. “I gather he barely survived the accident, and he woke up in the hospital several days later in terrible pain. Mary’s turn had finished and she was at his bedside when he woke, but he had no memory of what had happened at all the day of the accident. He did not remember what he witnessed until years later, on his eighteenth birthday when Mary explained about immortals and offered to turn him. Then it came back to him in a rush of hellish memories.” She shook her head unhappily. “Of course, he was hardly going to agree to the turn with that image in his mind.”
“Of course not,” Ildaria agreed with understanding, but asked, “Why didn’t they wipe his memory when it came back to him?”
“It is not that easy,” Marguerite said quietly. “You cannot reach in and remove something as old as that without the risk of damaging the mind.”
“But—I mean, it may have been an old memory, but he only remembered it in that moment. It was gone before that.”
“Not gone. Cloaked,” Marguerite assured her. “It was always there in his mind, though, and while he didn’t consciously recall it, some part of his mind was aware of it. Apparently, he had terrible nightmares for years after the accident. Mary thought they were because of the accident, but they were about her being an alien or pod person or some such thing.”