It’s a strange thing to know the inner workings of someone’s mind. Inside their head, you see not only their thoughts, but who they perceive themselves to be. Often reality is different.

Here lies plain, mousy, and unremarkable Jane Marie Brown. That’s who she believes herself to be. But to me the truth is very different.

Perhaps living an orphan servant’s life had given her the idea that she didn’t have anything to recommend her to anyone. However, I had lived more than ten centuries reading minds. It made me something of an expert on people, supernatural or otherwise.

In her memories, I saw what she could not. She was brave, hopeful, and willing to surrender herself to love completely. Something which she had, until now, not fully experienced or known.

With a broken heart and body, she still ran miles and miles, almost nude, through the frozen forest. After more than 24 hours without food or water and having lost much blood, she still fought to stay alive until her body overcame her.

The survival instinct in most people isn’t that strong. I’d seen stronger people lie down and give in to death much sooner and under much less pressure.

She did it because she promised her mate that she would do her best to live.

In my eyes, Jane Marie Brown was one of the purest persons I’d ever had the privilege to meet. She expected nothing and gave everything.

“What now?” She had asked me after flippantly calling me Gabe.

She wasn’t scared or reverent with me. She was truthful and matter-of-fact. She didn’t hide anything from me or feel I had invaded her privacy after watching her life play out in her dreams. She just accepted that reality.

“Can you drive, Jane?” I already knew the answer.

She scoffed, “Of course not, and you already know it.”

“Why do you assume so?”

“Because I know what I dreamed, and it was practically my entire life flashing before my eyes.”

I chuckled again.

I finally stood and pointed to a door on the other side of the room.

“Emma placed some clothing in the bathroom through that door. Please feel free to shower and dress so we can get you fed. Once the effects of my blood wear off, you could still die if you don’t eat.”

She nodded curtly, and without worrying about her modesty in the least, she stepped out of the bed and steadied herself before walking through the bathroom door and closing it softly behind her.

A few minutes later, I heard the shower running. When she stepped under the warm water, she moaned out loud as if she’d never had a hot shower in her life. Maybe she hadn’t. She sounded as if it was the height of her experiences to date.

I walked out of the room and down to the kitchen. I didn’t use the kitchen myself. I had a butler’s pantry that I had retrofitted as a walk-in refrigerator in which I stored my blood bags.

Currently, my lovely housekeeper was cooking a veritable feast there, her smile as wide as the sky.

When she noticed my presence, her mouth was off and running. Talking up a storm was one of Miss Emma Jones’s specialties. One that I didn’t mind in the least.

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“Master Gabriel, isn’t it thrilling to have another human in the house again! And such a lovely girl. Poor dearie. I can’t imagine why anyone would abuse such a small thing half to death and throw her out in the snow! What an awful world this is, as we both know full well. Just when I think these modern times are more civilized than ever, we see more and more atrocities still exist in this cruel world. Well, you just leave it to me, Master Gabriel. I’ll make sure she’s fed, pampered, and spoiled near to death. Only figuratively, of course.”

I grinned at her and didn’t bother to reply. She didn’t need me to say anything. She’d been with me for more than one hundred years, ever since I’d rescued her from a near run-in with Jack the Ripper.

She wasn’t even his typical choice of victim. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had been a charitable matron of forty years of age serving at Christ Church, Spitafields. She was trying to lead the little prostitute girls of London to salvation when she came upon a gruesome murder nearly complete.

When I’d seen her earlier in the evening, I’d been enchanted by her loveliness and had been following her for a while. When Jack turned his instruments of death toward her, I’d torn his head from his body and whisked the lovely Miss Emma Jones to my home in London, depositing the former Ripper in some hole or other along the way.

She blessed the Lord and her own soul many times before she finally thanked me and asked much the same thing as Jane had earlier, “What happens now?”

It was a common question people and supernaturals alike would ask one of the most powerful vampires in the world. A question that was born of curiosity and an admission that they were at my mercy.

I’d given her the choice to continue her work in East London or come to work for me as my housekeeper. She said she could hardly go back to normal life after knowing that someone like me existed, and she might as well serve me since she owed me a debt for saving her life.

Three years after coming to be my housekeeper, she nearly died of a vicious virus that was going around. So, I turned her, with her consent, so that she could remain by my side. The idea of losing her had been unthinkable. It still is.

We both appeared to be in our thirties now, even though she was more like 170 and I was closer to 1,170.

The vampire nature had, of course, made her look her best self. Emma was short and curvy with a flawless complexion. Her long golden-brown hair, which she wore in a bun whenever she carried out her housekeeping duties, was breathtaking to me. So many nights I’d dreamed of running my fingers through her beautiful locks and kissing the top of her head.

Her sparkling green eyes always drew my attention, causing me to stare at her for longer than necessary. I quite adored her, and if truth be told, I loved her more than any being I’d ever known.

We were something like a strange middle-aged married couple - where the wife had no idea she was in a couple - and it was on my list of goals to someday stop her from calling me Master and persuade her to love me back. I hadn’t been able to do it yet since she seemed so happy being my housekeeper, and I didn’t want to spoil it for her.

I rarely peered into her mind, giving her privacy out of respect for the kind attention and care she gave me over the years.

Emma continued cooking Jane’s feast, softly humming a song to herself while moving around the kitchen. I sat on a stool at the kitchen island and watched her contentedly.

This is how Jane Marie Brown found us when she finished cleaning up and getting dressed. She must have followed her nose to the food.

She stopped in the doorway as her stomach let out an enormous rumble of hunger, but she was paused there, observing us, and thinking, “Are they a married couple? Should I go in?”

“I wish,” I said to her and winked.

“Come. Eat,” I encouraged her.

Emma looked up at me and said, “You wish what?” Then, she noticed Jane standing in the doorway.

She immediately rushed to the girl, and gently took Jane by the hands, guiding her onto a stool near me.

“Jane, please come eat! You’re nothing but skin and bones!” She cooed like a mother hen.

Jane obediently sat on the stool in bewilderment as Emma piled a plate full of fruit, quiche, bacon, and croissants glistening with butter and jam.

Emma then placed a large glass of water and another of juice beside Jane’s plate.

Jane stared at it in awe.

“What’s wrong? Is it not good?” Emma asked worriedly.

“Not good?!” Jane nearly yelled, then quietly said, “I’ve never been given such a feast in my life!”

She dug into the food with the gusto of a starving animal. Emma refilled her plate twice, and Jane continued eating while making sounds of pleasure and satisfaction.

Emma watched her with delight and great affection. I suddenly felt we’d adopted a daughter.