24. Conrad
CONRAD
Three weeks later, once I was fully recovered, I took Winnie to dinner.
The kids had been deeply offended that they weren’t invited on our date.
CJ claimed that after helping save both our lives, he had earned at least an appetizer.
Bianca argued that she was responsible for eighty percent of the research and should therefore accompany as a chaperone.
Billie simply asked if she could come hide under our table.
We compromised by allowing them to have a sleepover at their Aunt Amethyst’s house. She’d promised to make it fun for them, complete with pillow forts, popcorn, and movies.
The children had looked suspicious when we dropped them off. As if they expected us to vanish into the night and get married before morning. Honestly, after the week we’d had, I couldn’t entirely blame them.
The restaurant Winnie had chosen looked unassuming from the outside. It was in a narrow brick building tucked between two newer storefronts downtown. A faded sign swung gently above the entrance. The King’s Arms.
Inside, dark wood covered nearly every surface. There were low ceilings with exposed beams and a massive fireplace on the back wall. The smell of roasted meat, ale, and fresh bread lingered in the air. It felt comfortably old. The kind of place where people stayed longer than they intended.
Winnie looked almost giddy. “I’ve wanted to bring you here for ages.”
“You have?” I asked.
She nodded, looking a bit embarrassed. “I mean...”
I grinned. “You’ve been planning pub dates?”
She pointed a finger at me. “I have survived cholera outbreaks, two world wars, and being kidnapped by my homicidal sire.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I do not need an account mocking me.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m technically a financial consultant. There’s a difference.”
“That sounds even more mockable.”
The hostess seated us near the fireplace. The second the menus arrived, Winnie opened hers. “I already know what I want.”
“What?”
“They have blood sausage.”
I stared. “Say what?”
“Blood sausage.”
“That sounds… interesting.”
She pointed to the menu. “They also have black pudding.”
“What the hell is black pudding? It doesn’t sound very appetizing.”
“It’s a specific type of blood sausage,” she explained.
“Just as I suspected. Not a dessert at all.”
I looked up at Winnie. She was practically vibrating with excitement.
“You’re so excited about blood products.”
She scowled. “Of course I’m excited. The high blood content allows me to eat my weight in them.”
“Should I leave you and the blood sausages alone? Do you need a moment?”
She laughed so hard she nearly dropped her menu.
God. I loved making her laugh. It had become one of my favorite things. Her laugh immediately improved my day, and I’d caught myself storing little stories just to tell her later.
I was in deep. Hopelessly. Ridiculously.
Our waitress arrived. Winnie ordered enough blood sausage and black pudding to concern a cardiologist.
I ordered fish and chips.
When the waitress left, I leaned back. “So.”
Winnie smiled. “So.”
“I think you owe me approximately two centuries of explanation.”
She groaned. “That’s fair.” She studied her folded hands. “I truly am sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t trying to deceive you,” she said.
“I know.”
“I was terrified.”
“I would’ve wanted you to stay,” I said quietly.
Her eyes lifted. “Even after learning I was a vampire?”
I shrugged. “You already knew how much I liked you.”
A laugh escaped her. “I did. But that didn’t automatically mean you would want to stay with me when you learned I didn’t have a heartbeat.”
I smiled. “You should’ve seen yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“The second time you caught me staring at you.”
She buried her face in her hands. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“I thought I was being subtle.”
“Winnie.”
She groaned louder. I laughed.
The food arrived. Winnie immediately cut into the blood sausage and took a bite. She closed her eyes and moaned. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”
I nearly choked laughing. “You look like you’re having a religious experience.”
She pointed her fork at me. “You have no idea how difficult it is finding quality blood sausage here.”
I waved my hand in the general direction of her blood sausage. “That sentence is insane.”
“It’s also true.”
The conversation drifted naturally, easier than it ever had before. Now, there were no secrets, no pretending, and no carefully avoiding certain topics.
Eventually, I asked the question that had been haunting me. “So, how old are you?”
Winnie swallowed, then a slow smile curled on her lips. “Nope.”
“Nope?”
“I’m not just going to tell you. You have to guess.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Absolutely not. I know better than to guess a woman’s age.”
“You have to.”
“Winnie.”
“Conrad. You have to.”
I sighed dramatically. “Fine.”
She sat back expectantly.
“Forty.”
She looked offended.
“Conrad.”
“Thirty-five?”
“Really?”
“Twenty-nine.”
She threw a bread roll at me.
I dodged. Barely.
“Do I look twenty-nine?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
The annoyance disappeared instantly. She looked pleased. “I’ll take that.”
I leaned forward. “Give me a clue.”
She thought. “I was born before electricity.”
My fork froze halfway to my mouth. “What?”
She smiled.
I stared. “You were not.”
“I was.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
My brain began rapidly performing math it did not want to perform. “Winnie.”
She smiled wider. “Guess.”
“Oh my god.” I pointed at her. “One hundred.”
She laughed. “Higher.”
“One-twenty?”
“Higher.”
My stomach dropped. “One-fifty?”
“Higher.”
I sat there staring. My eyes widened. “No.”
Winnie grinned. “Two hundred and five.”
I inhaled, sending food down the wrong pipe, and started choking.
Winnie burst into laughter. She bent over in her chair, and tears gathered in her eyes. The more I coughed, the harder she laughed. “Oh my god.”
“You are not allowed to laugh.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I absolutely am.”
“You broke my brain.”
“Well,” she sighed, “you asked.”
“You were alive during Napoleon?”
She laughed harder. “Technically speaking, I was born the year Napoleon died. 1821. So we never had the pleasure of meeting.”
“That’s a shame. But you were alive before railroads.”
She laughed. “That’s debatable, depending on what type of railway you’re referring to.”
I smirked. “You were alive before indoor plumbing.”
That nearly killed her. Tears streamed down her face. “I think you need to read up on your historical facts. The Romans had their own version of indoor plumbing. I’m not that old.”
I waved my hand in the air. “I’m not talking about the aqueducts. You know what I’m saying.”
People at nearby tables started looking over. I didn’t care.
Eventually, she managed to calm down enough to catch her breath. “I suppose it all sounds rather odd.”
“No, it sounds impossible.”
She tilted her head. “My sire turned to dust in front of your children yesterday. I think you can wrap your mind around my age.”
“Fair point.”
The conversation drifted after that. Toward Ireland.
Toward the girl she’d once been. The real Winnie.
She told me about her parents. The poverty-stricken life she’d lived in a tiny cottage where she’d had to share a bed with her siblings.
She told me of the times she had to go hungry so the younger children could eat, but there was no animosity in it.
No, she spoke about her brothers and sisters with such fierce affection that I immediately understood why she’d fallen so completely in love with my kids. She’d always been built for family.
“They were my favorite people,” she admitted quietly.
The fireplace crackled nearby. People laughed at the bar. But we occupied our own little corner of time.
“I missed them terribly,” she continued. “When I left.”
“You were, what? Eighteen?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “God.”
She smiled sadly. “It seemed like such a great opportunity.”
Then she told me about the position on the island with Bogdan and everything that followed. I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine. I wished I had the perfect thing to say. Some losses were too large for cleverness, though.
Her fingers turned beneath mine. Intertwining. Holding on.
The conversation eventually quieted in a comfortable way. We sat there in the light from the fireplace, enjoying the simple fact that the other person existed.
Finally, Winnie touched her cheek. “What?”
I blinked. “What?”
She frowned. “Do I have blood on my face?”
I laughed. “No.”
“Then why are you staring?”
The answer arrived so quickly I didn’t have time to filter it. “Because you’re kind of incredible.”
She froze.
“I mean it.”
Her eyes widened. “Conrad...”
“No, seriously.” I shook my head. “You trapped an ancient monster. You fought him. You broke a compulsion that controlled you for almost two centuries.”
Her gaze dropped to her lap.
“You saved my children.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “You saved me, in more ways than one.”
Silence settled between us. Winnie looked down at our joined hands. Then back at me. I could see tears threatening again. Happy ones this time.
“I love you, too, you know,” I said.
I’d heard those words from her, not directly, but from Bogdan. She loved me, and she needed to know that I felt the same.
She squeezed my hand gently.
“I know things are complicated.”
She laughed quietly. “That’s the understatement of the century. Possibly several centuries.”
“Fair.” I brushed my thumb across the back of her hand. “I don’t know exactly what our future looks like.”
Neither of us said the bigger thing. Immortality. Aging. Time. The enormous shadow waiting in the distance. Not tonight. Tonight wasn’t for fear. Tonight was for surviving. For choosing each other. For being alive.
“I just know I want a future with you,” I said.
A tear tracked down her cheek, but she smiled.
I could actually imagine happiness stretching forward instead of backward. Not replacing what I’d lost, of course. Nothing ever could. Instead, adding to it. Expanding the shape of my life in ways I hadn’t thought were possible anymore.
Winnie squeezed my hand.
I squeezed back.
And neither of us let go.