Darkness Comes by A.C. Warneke Read Free Book Online Page B

fingers grazing the bandage on her neck. Forcing herself to meet her father’s eyes, she continued, “When the… Aradian took me in his arms I had no resistance and I have trained my entire life to destroy vampires; I would have given up anything to remain in his arms.”
    Grief twisted his features as he looked at her, but before he could say anything that might condemn her for a fool, she shook her head, “Finish the story; how did he escape?”
    “He managed to get out during one of these orgies,” Gus managed. “He took his son; he took me, and turned his back on his privileged life as an Aradian slave. Father had been grateful that I had been a son and not a daughter; had I been a girl, they never would have let me go.”
    Mal’s brows pulled together, trying desperately to make sense of her father’s tale. “But then how did he know the village had been destroyed if he escaped before it happened?”
    Gus huffed out a harsh laugh. “It was too difficult to make it on his own and he returned a few months later. Only, there was nothing left but the dead bodies of the men and women slaughtered by the vamps. It had been only a few hours after the massacre and he found the woman he loved – my mother – with her belly cut open and a child removed. He never knew whether the child lived or died, or who the father was; if he had been the father. ”
    “Oh, God,” Mal groaned, picturing the scene in her head; seeing the black-haired Aradian in the middle of it, his shirt soaked in blood as he held a small, newly born baby to his chest, his piercing cry alerting the world to his presence. She could smell the stench of burning flesh and blood and she almost gagged. But was this a memory of what had happened or was it only in her head?
    “My father went into hiding, managing to make his way aboard a ship heading for the New World,” Gus said, still oblivious to the anxiety nibbling at the edges of Malorie’s thoughts. “He taught me everything he knew and trained me to be a warrior, just as I’ve taught you.”
    He laughed coldly, “We were safe in the New World for a very long time and while it was sometimes very difficult, it was almost peaceful. Your grandfather and I were farmers, of all things. Much like you and Toby, we had a knack for growing things and found a measure of contentment even as we moved further and further west.
    “But when the Aradians started arriving in the eighteen hundreds, my father became paranoid, telling me that it was imperative that I never have children, that it wouldn’t be fair to them should they ever be caught. He made me promise that no matter what happened to him I was to never have children and for several years after he left I kept my promise.
    “But then I met your mother and fell in love,” Gus exhaled slowly, a sad smile playing on his lips as he looked at Malorie, the tension leaving his face for a brief moment. “Your birth was the happiest day of my long, long life.”
    Closing her eyes, afraid of the answer, she asked, “What happened to my mother?”
    “It’s hard for me to talk about her….” He straightened his spine and clenched his jaw. She knew it was a touchy subject and she never questioned him, even when she was desperate for a mother’s advice, but now….
    “You don’t talk about her at all,” she interrupted, forcing him to look at her.
    “I know,” he nodded and pain filled his eyes. Then the fight simply went out of him as his shoulders slumped and he covered his face with his hands. With his face twisted with anguish and remembrance, he said painfully, “I loved her very much, Malorie, and I think, I mean I know, she loved me but she didn’t understand; she never understood.”
    “What are you talking about?” she asked, her head still filled with fluff.
    “She knew only a little about me, about my fight against vampires,” he answered softly after a long pause. “Somehow she discovered that I had lived a long, long time and