“It’s a difference of priorities,” Vail exhaled as Victoria took his earlobe between her teeth. With his bloodlust satisfied, there was nothing left to distract him from the beautiful woman sitting on his lap. Her teasing smile and playful nibble caused a different kind of lust to surface, and he sensuously followed the curves of her hips and waist with his hands. “My kind lives far longer than yours, so our instinct to preserve life is stronger than our desire to procreate,” he explained thoughtfully, reflecting on the lessons he had been taught by Reginald and Peter. “Assuming I’m not killed, I’ll be here for centuries while humans rarely see more than eight decades. Because of that, I don’t have the same urgency to have children as mortal men do, and my drive to keep myself alive by drinking blood is far higher. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

It was also why violence between vampire clans was so devastating. The reign of the Hygraces had helped their population stabilize, because they had acted as protectors of their kind whenever the Order struck, but if they dissolved into squabbling amongst each other, the Saints wouldn’t even need to lift a finger against them. They would destroy themselves.

Idly, he wondered if their lower libido was also related to the fact that they could add to their numbers by turning humans with a bite. Since the ritual was no longer widely used, his family had never listed it as a method of procreation, but it seemed logical to him that they wouldn’t have as much of a need to bear natural children if there was a more convenient way to go about procreation. The only reason they didn’t do it that way anymore seemed to be because of their evolving view of humanity. If looking at mortals as more than just prey was discouraged, he could only image that adopting one into a pureblooded family line would be considered abominable.

When Victoria leaned her head on his shoulder, Vail rested his cheek against her hair. “If you don’t believe me: Before you came along and [i]seduced[/i] me at The Shire,” he squeezed her in a hug as he teased her in return, “I hadn’t been with a woman since the 1700’s.” Not to say that the thought had never crossed his mind. There had been a few vampires who had caught his eye over the past two centuries, but after the novelty of intimacy had worn off, he was no longer interested in meaningless flings. He had been content with his solitary life, and it hadn’t been until Lady Crest had streaked her lips with blood that his dormant carnal appetite had been rekindled.

At her request for her reward, the Hygrace heir smiled and turned his head to murmur in a low tone in her ear, “I think you do.” Reaching up to her chin, he coaxed her to turn toward his face with a touch of his finger and kissed her deeply as he held her close to himself. His hands wandered over her attractive body, tracing her soft skin beneath the water, but before he could push to escalate things, he paused as his father’s words came back to him. He still wanted to have her, but he didn’t feel right about doing so when only one of them was aware of the possible consequences.

Pulling back from her lips, he cleared his throat and met her gaze. “Before we do this, you should know something,” he said slowly. “I found out recently that it’s possible for vampires and humans to conceive across species. I don’t know much about it, but I want to make sure you’re comfortable with the possibility that we could… that you might become pregnant if we keep sleeping together.”