Be Mine Tonight by Kathryn Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

He would ignore Chapel’s efforts. The vampire race had begun with Lilith, first wife of Adam and concubine of the fallen angel Sammael. Sammael had made his lover a demon queen, and she gave birth to the first of the vampires. Surely there could be no good in such origins, but he refused to believe that his soul could be completely lost. Molyneux constantly told them that while God had cursed the vampires to walk the night, He had also spared them, and that must mean that there was a plan, even for Chapel and his comrades.
    The Blood Grail, that was what they called the cup that had turned Chapel and his friends into blood-drinking fiends, had been embued with the essence of Lilith as a punishment for her betrayal of Sammael. It was through Lilith that God discovered that his trusted angels on earth plotted against His human children. For her duplicity, Sammael cursed Lilith into thirty pieces of silver so that shemight be passed from man to man as she deserved. Judas Iscariot was one of the men to whom that silver was passed.
    The silver was forged into a chalice shortly after Judas’s betrayal of Christ. No one knew when the Templars took possession of it, only that they had sought to hide it from the world.
    Until Chapel drank from it, thinking it would save his life and then, seeing how it cured him and thinking it was the Holy Grail they’d found, his friends followed. They were all infected with Lilith’s curse.
    At first the power had been wonderful—addictive, even. That power had made him forget about Marie for a time. But then Dreux had killed himself, unable to stand the immortality—the immorality —any longer. That was when everything changed—for all of them.
    When the five of them parted ways hundreds of years before, Temple assigned himself the task of protecting the Blood Grail. Tintagel, Cornwall—here where this hunt for the Holy Grail was taking place—was one of Temple’s hiding spots, but not even Chapel knew the exact location.
    He and Molyneux were there to investigate the expedition. If the true Grail was found, he was to claim it for the Holy Roman Empire. If it was the Blood Grail, he had to keep it from falling into hands that might abuse it and protect the humans from Temple, who might very well be in a feral-like state brought on from years of seclusion and lack of blood.
    It was blood that kept the demon inside in check.Without it, the demon became as demanding as a spoiled child, progressively getting worse until the vampire host lost all control and went on a murderous rampage. He had seen it happen once—when Dreux had tried to deny the bloodlust. It had taken all of Chapel’s strength to subdue his friend.
    Temple would rather die than harm anyone in such a fashion, Chapel knew that for a fact, but he might keep himself hungry in order to keep his senses sharp and his instincts keen—useful advantages if he was threatened by forces trying to take the cup. Not so beneficial to those who stumbled upon him. There was no way to predict how he might react to being discovered by a group of treasure-hunting humans.
    Molyneux had convinced Chapel to come by claiming that he was the only one who could stand against Temple, and he was right. But who would protect the innocent from Chapel? Someone would get hurt if his own control failed. Not to mention the fact that someone was bound to notice that he was rarely around in the daytime and that he avoided the sun like the plague.
    How long had it been since he had seen the sun, felt the warmth on his face? Long enough that he no longer missed it, but wondered about it like something never before experienced.
    And now here was Prudence Ryland, as bright and warm as the sun ever dreamed of being. Just standing next to her was like raising his face to a midday July sky. The waves of hope radiating from her were as soothing as they were painful. A reminder of all that he had lost.
    No, that was wrong. He hadn’t lost his hope. His faith,