Arc 3: All That Glisters (Part 4)

My blatant emotional manipulation works on Canus. He stops pacing and looks back at me with a stricken expression. ‘I don’t—I mean—no, you’re right. It’s not fair to keep it from you.’ He breathes in, then exhales in something akin to a long sigh, but it’s not the sigh that I’m used to. It’s not disappointed or exasperated, but instead tremulous. Almost like if he’s afraid.

‘Alright, it’s like this. As a newborn, my curse was centred on, ah—’ He winces. ‘Sorry, there’s just no other way to phrase it: I was more or less limited to virgins—purity in a very archaic sense of the word. I still am, sort of, but the curse worsened when I stopped being a newborn.’

I already knew this, more or less, but still I feel the un-vampire urge to blush. I swallow down my embarrassment and ask, ‘And how did it worsen?’

‘Now, I am limited to those who are dependent upon me.’

A pause, then I start, ‘How does that even…’ relate?

He grimaces. ‘I can’t be certain, of course, but I think the logic might