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"So what are we going to do?"

Arer seat of his pickup, for oneshe meant about the fact that they appeared to be life mates Of course that was only because it was the elephant that had been sitting in his mind since they&039;d left the house and headed out for the city and thethere Eshe was his life mate After all these centuries, he&039;d been fortunate enough to find a second one It was a hell of a surprise The problem was, he wasn&039;t sure if it was a pleasant one yet That being the case, he was trying to decide how to answer her question when she added, "I gather we&039;re going shopping for clothes for me, but why?"

"Oh" Armand forced his eyes back to the road and his mind to the question It took hi over that fact as he said, "Lucian said you needed clothes for your stay here He said to take you shopping and gave usted sound and then sighed unhappily "I suppose my leathers don&039;t exactly blend in out here"

"No," Ar fros She really had quite shapely legs, he thought, and then acknowledged that everything about her was shapely The brief gli distracted by the sight of her undone pants had been a rather revealing one Eshe didn&039;t have very large breasts, barely more than a handful each, but they were round and perfect for all that Besides, who needed et some jeans and T-shirts," Eshe said suddenly in a voice that was al any flowery dresses or anything like the one Mrs Ra today"

"You don&039;t need dresses," Arave a s Arhts He was deep into a silent debate as to whether he should call Lucian and have him take her somewhere else when she suddenly said, "I&039;m not your first life mate"

The coather his thoughts before acknowledging, "No I have had a life mate before"

"So have I," she said quietly, and then added, "I was fortunate enough to , only thirty I got to spend eight lovely centuries with him before I lost him"

"How did you lose him?" he asked curiously

"He died in battle," Eshe said quietly "He was a fierce warrior, but luck ith the other side that day and they took his head"

"Were there any children?" Arht Six still live," she said simply, and then said, "I know you have three All of theh, were they?"

"No," he said on a sigh "Susanna, my first wife and life mate, she and I had only one child, Nicholas Thohter, Jeanne Louise, to my third"

"But your second and third wives weren&039;t life mates to you"

Despite the fact that it was a statement rather than a question, Armand said, "No, they weren&039;t"

"Then why did you marry the other tomen?" she asked simply

It wasn&039;t an unusual question, but the explanation was co, he finally simply told the truth "I was lonely, and my second wife, Althea, looked very like my deceased life mate, Susanna Even so, I didn&039;t plan to le wos in those days"

"So she tricked you into e," Eshe said dryly Inant accidentally as could happen with ra babies used up a lot of nutrients and blood so that the nanos apparently saw the baby as a parasite to be flushed froet pregnant and then had to continue to consume extra blood for the next nine months to keep the child to term

"Essentially, yes, she did," Armand admitted quietly "But I didn&039;t mind very much As I said, I was lonely and the idea of another child pleased me"

"And the idea of another wife?" she asked

Ar in her voice that lance at her, but her expression held rown a bit paranoid over the centuries and answered, "Althea was the daughter of a friend I had great affection for her And I bla what she was up to"

"What do you mean what she was up to?" This time it was definitely curiosity in her voice

"Althea had had a crush on me since she was about twelve The fact that she couldn&039;t read me convinced her that I must be her life mate Her parents explained that she simply couldn&039;t read me because I was older and that I could read her, but she didn&039;t want to hear that and decided they rong I was the ri, but then my ten years at the farer and moved on to one of my others I didn&039;t see much of her after that While her parents visited e her crush She was a bit obsessive with it even as a teen," he ad immortal woman arrived at my farm in search of a job as maid She said her name was Alice, and she looked a hell of a lot like uessed dryly

Armand nodded "She didn&039;t really look that much like Susanna in reality They had the same blond hair and not completely dissimilar features, but that was about it However, she had seen portraits of Susanna and styled her hair the saown of a similar fashion to the one Susanna had worn for her portrait It was enough that when I first opened the door I thought Susanna had risen frorimaced and then admitted quietly, "I suppose I wanted to believe it was her Or hed at the old memories "She happened to arrive at a weak ht She wasOf course, it wasn&039;t the same as with my Susanna, but it was nice and filled a little of the ache in h sense to read her thoughts and realized who she was

"Dear God," he ust at the memory of his shock and horror at the tinized her at once While it had been years at that point since he&039;d seen her, and she&039;d been a child then, he still felt he should have recognized the seductress as the knobby-kneed child he&039;d known Unfortunately, he hadn&039;t "I didn&039;t knohether to shoot hter, for God&039;s sake And at eighteen still a child really in immortal tered me all the way there not to tell them what she&039;d done and how she&039;d trickedher, so allowed her to persuade nant," Eshe deduced, and Arht, I can tell you I wasn&039;t pleased when she showed up on ain, but then I was simply stunned when she blurted the news Still, ht of another child, and so I offered herthat neither of us would try to read or control the other, and when she e to allow for hio for h I didn&039;t really expect I would," he ad to her parents That&039;s when the night really got ht, but he knehat Althea was like when she wanted so and eventually came around"

"The child was Thomas," Eshe said quietly

Ar and chortling at so early, and forever hu tunes I should have realized then he&039;d becohed at the old h his head "I had to take hih I am to admit it, I missed hiuerite?" Eshe asked "Why not raise him yourself?"

"How?" Armand asked dryly "It&039;s not like there is an immortal nanny co for nanny jobs And you can&039;t leave a child that young with an uninitiated mortal woman He&039;d bite Not out of cruelty or ry and the nanny smelled like food"

"You could have initiated asoh trust in a mortal that they can accept e are In the meantime, Thomas could never have been left alone with her and I si him with a nanny twenty-four hours a day I had a farm to run" He shook his head "I didn&039;t see any other option but to let Marguerite raise him for me when she offered"

Eshe was silent for a moment and then asked, "How did Althea die?"

Araze on the road ahead as he said, "A hotel fire"

"You escaped?" she asked, and his paranoia rose up in hilance at her uncertainly He could have sworn there had been an inflection to her tone thatAro when he saw her expression was simply curious, and explained

"I wasn&039;t there It was a busy time at the farm when I was outside more than in William and Mary, Althea&039;s parents, had come to visit for a bit When they left, they took Althea and four-year-old Tho to their farm, but apparently they made a detour to the city for as supposed to be a few days, but the first night they were there a fire broke out in the hotel Althea must have been trapped or didn&039;t wake up to the shouts and noise in tiot out?" Eshe asked with a frown

"He was in Althea&039;s parents&039; room Althea had been tired after the day&039;s excursions and Mary liked to spoil the boy, so she took Thomas into their rooot out with Thomas Althea didn&039;t"

Eshe was silent for a ain, he could hear the frown in her voice and understood it completely when she murmured, "Nicholas once mentioned that his riue in lad to be able to do so as he said, "Another tilance out theas he turned into thelot, and Armand felt himself relax He understood her curiosity but he didn&039;t like to talk about the past Doing so had wound hilad for the respite fro about the past that it would offer

"You should probably go to the food court now," Eshe announced as they carried her bags out of the last of the clothing stores, or at least the last of the to try Eshe wasn&039;t much of a shopper She liked what she liked, spotted it quickly, bought it, and got out, and this had been a particularly quick shop for her since all she had bought were a couple of pairs of jeans and half a dozen T-shirts She had also bought a pair of black dress pants and a dressier top in case they went somewhere fancier than the diner-like this Moxie&039;s Mrs Ramsey had mentioned-but that had taken only a couple of minutes

"The food court?" Arry?"

"I aed, surprised to find that it was true It must only have been a couple of hours since they&039;d eaten The drive in hadn&039;t takenhad probably taken an hour, but they&039;d also walked all the way around thethe actual clothing shopping That had been a rather interesting exercise Eshe had been rather surprised to find thator attractive in the decorating and furniture stores were iteht sure they&039;d have little in coal She&039;d been wrong, however They had siht aside, she added, "But I o there to hile I finish off the shoppingat La Senza"

"La Senza" Armand frowned "I remember the name Which store was that?"