"In her lifetime, Gilda had killed reluctantly and infrequently. When she took the blood there was no need to take life. But she knew that there were those like her who gained power as much from the terror of their prey as from the life substance itself.Gilda was sustained by sharing the blood and maintaining the vital connections to life. Her love for her family of friends had fed her for three hundred years. When Bird chose to join her in this life, Gilda was filled with both joy and dread. The weight of the years she had known subsided temporarily; at last there would be someone beside her to experience the passage of time.".