Would this Dr. Angelus end up owning half a brain or would he be an intellectual idiot? I’d reserve judgment until I met the man.

In the meantime, I’d done my own research on the fellow only to grudgingly admit the man had some impressive credentials. He came with all kinds of degrees and masters from medical to psychological along with some science. My head ached already imagining all the big words he’d force on me to prove his human superiority. Still bottom of the food chain, though, I thought with a smirk.

I heard the front door answered by Adolphus. Too old to feed me, but still useful in other matters, he acted as my butler. From my spot in the parlor I waited and listened impatiently to the murmurs. After what seemed an interminable wait, footsteps approached and I posed against the fireplace. First impressions were everything.

In a pompous tone only prideful servants achieve, my elderly butler announced my dreaded visitor. “Dr. Raphael Angelus to see you, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Adolphus,” I said in my snooty lady-of-the-manor voice.

In walked the doctor and out whooshed my breath. Somehow, he’d looked a lot smaller in the pictures. In person though, the man towered-good thing I’d worn my stupidly high heels, it put me at his chin. His blond hair was trimmed shorter than the image I’d seen, but his eyes were the same clear blue behind his scholarly glasses. His lips quirked into a smile at my perusal-I’d soon wipe that look from his face.

As I glided towards him, my hips swishing hypnotically, I took in the rest of him from the broad shoulders stretching the ill-fitting suit jacket, to his big feet encased in scuffed loafers. The man looked like a text book case of geeky professor, and given his many layers of loose clothing, I couldn’t tell if his width derived from fat or muscle. Not that I truly cared, because after all, his only purpose was to test and observe me as the first vampire guinea pig. Once he’d learned the truths we’d selected as safe to impart, he could relay his findings and thus calm the human masses. Lulling them into a false sense of security. I almost bit my lip as I tried not break out into a villainous laugh.

More nervous than expected, my mind rambled in circles trying to distract me. It didn’t work. I was still much too aware of him. His scent tickled my nose, clean and fresh with a mouthwatering maleness. I inhaled deep. The sound of his heart beating drove me wild. It thumped in my mind like a sensual music. He came across as utterly delicious.

His gaze slid up and down my frame as thoroughly as I’d inspected him, but unlike other human males, he didn’t flush or tent his pants even though I oozed sexuality-on purpose of course. Like a tap, I could turn on beguilement with just a thought. To no avail with the good doctor, it appeared. I found his lack of reaction odd. I cocked a hip, licked my lips and smiled at him. And again, he didn’t respond as he should have. Instead, as if I were asexual, he thrust out a hand.

“Countess Bathory, thank you so much for agreeing to see me.”

Taken aback at his lack of interest in my feminine charms, I didn’t immediately respond. Then, in a lightning flash, I understood. He’s a man lover. “I am delighted to be of service, Dr. Angelus,” I said with false enthusiasm as I stuck my hand into his to shake it. A shiver shot up my spine as our skin connected, a warm tingle that ran up and down my body before it centered itself in my cleft-a surprisingly pleasant sensation. Startled, I took a step back and let my hand slip from his. He seemed to notice nothing amiss and turned abruptly from me to head back out to the hall.

I gaped at his retreating body. Where is he going? I didn’t give him permission to leave. With the choice of yodeling after him like some fisherwife or scurrying after him like a peon, I chose neither. He was here to examine me. He’d have to come back.

I draped myself on a couch and had little time to ponder my strange reaction to him and his lack thereof to me. He returned almost immediately-his gait smooth and unlike the shuffle I’d expected of a man who spent days in labs. A thick briefcase dangled from one of his hands and a laptop case from the other. He set them both down and opened the fat one. He rummaged for a moment and pulled out a notepad. He immediately jotted some notes. His head bent over his task, he said not a word to me.

Curiosity burned me, but I refused to give in and ask what he noted. I’d find out later when he slept and I snooped through his things. Privacy was for stupid people who didn’t have enemies. Me, I trusted no one.

The scratching of his pen stopped and he raised his eyes to meet mine. “Sorry, but I wanted to write down my first observations.”

“And they are?” I asked before I could curb my tongue.

I could have sworn mirth flashed in eyes, but he dropped his gaze too quickly for me to be sure. “Um, I wrote that you are an attractive woman appearing to be in her mid to late twenties.”

I preened at attractive-maybe not as immune as I’d surmised. “I was forty when my human side died,” I supplied.

“Really?” his eyes rose to meet mine again and I pushed a little power at him, a little hey, don’t you think I’m hot mojo. Instead of drooling, he looked away.

I frowned.

He scribbled again.

I tapped my nails on the wooden armrest of the couch, the rat-tatting sound loud in the almost silent room.

He stopped writing and looked up again. “Sorry, just writing down your age at the time you were turned.”

“You could have looked that up on the internet,” I replied, wondering at the fact he didn’t even know such a basic fact about me.

“I didn’t want to taint my findings by doing research on you beforehand,” he explained. “So, I hope you’ll excuse me if I take a lot of notes or ask a lot of questions.”

As answers went, his made sense. “I’ve been told to cooperate, so ask away.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, you said you were forty when you died yet you look much younger. Is this common for older humans who are changed into vampires?”

I almost bristled at his calling me old; however, I reminded myself he’d guessed my exterior age as much younger. “Oh, I had to work at regaining the beauty of my youth. I bathed in the warm blood of several hundred virgins before I was able to reverse the telltale signs of aging.”

My response startled him and he peered at me with his mouth rounded in an ‘O’ of surprise. “Seriously?”

I smiled with a lot of teeth. “Totally. It’s why I was arrested and convicted.”

He knelt in front of me scribbling. “Tell me more.”

“How about I start from when I was turned?” A day I still remembered vividly.

“Can you just briefly summarize your life up to that point starting with what year you were born?”

I leaned back and remembered back to a time when I was still so ignorant… so human. “I was born in Hungary on August seventh, 1560. I had a normal childhood. As was usual for the time, I was married by the time I was fifteen to Ferenc Nádasdy. We had several children together.” Precious darlings whose faces I could still clearly see in my mind. I skimmed over them. “Some of them lived, some died as was common for the time.” The grief I’d suffered at their early demise still stung hundreds of years later. Unbeknownst to all but my queen, I kept a watchful eye over my few remaining descendants who’d changed their names to escape my legacy of murder and blood. Too bad for them, they still carried my genes.

“Did they know of your change?”

I shook my head vehemently. “No. Once I was turned, I prohibited my children from visiting me.” Not out of shame for my newfound status, but because I feared losing control and eating them.

“So how were you changed? Who did it?”

“It happened in the year of 1600. My husband was away at war, again.” He’d spent most of our marriage elsewhere, the ideal situation for an arranged marriage like ours. “I was in charge of the castle and the defense of our lands. The last night of my humanity, a storm was brewing and the household had just settled itself for the night when a knock sounded.” It was so easy to slip back in my memories to the moment that changed me forever. I could still hear the echoing, ominous thud as someone braved the wicked weather to knock at my door.

My servants huddle in the common room, their fearful eyes trained on the main door to the hall. Dressed in my sleep wrap, I chide them for being foolish and superstitious. I open the door, the coolness of the night and the dampness of the pouring rain making me shiver. At first I see nothing, but a crack of lightning illuminates the courtyard. I let out a small scream at the sudden looming figure of a stranger dressed in a heavy cloak.

His low voice emerges from the depth of his hood. “I apologize for the lateness, fair mistress; however, my carriage has broken down. If I might humbly request a bed for the night, in the morn I shall depart, seeking aide in repairing my carriage.”

Raised to be charitable to others of my caste, something evidenced by the cut of his cloak and the richness of the fabric, I hasten to invite him in. “Enter and warm yourself by the fire.” How little do I know I invite my doom.

My servants know. They cling to each other, cringing and staying as far as they can get from the gentleman. When kind tones do not move them, I resort to harsher words. My servants scuttle to wake the slumbering coals in the fireplaces and set a kettle to boil. The stranger warms his pale hands in front of the fire and turns as I approach. He removes his cloak and I am struck by his handsome features. Darkly attractive, his pale skin is offset by his ebony hair. I find myself lost in his eyes and for the first time in my life, I feel desire.