Enraptured by Brenda K. Davies Read Free Book Online

only marks left upon
her flesh.
    “I gave you some of my blood to heal the
wounds before you bled out,” he explained.
    Her eyes widened in horror. “I’m not… I
won’t…”
    “You won’t become a vampire,” he assured
her.
    Her shoulders slumped, her head bowed as she
inhaled a shuddery breath. He could feel the relief washing out of
her and over him. “You shouldn’t have.”
    “You would have died.”
    Her eyes slid toward him, her chin jutted
out. “There are fates worse than death.”
    Ian shook his head. “I don’t know what
you’ve been told, or what you’ve experienced, but it’s not true.
Only the worst of our kind, the brutal murderers amongst us, are
unable to tolerate the sunlight. The rest of us are perfectly
capable of walking about in the day, crossing large bodies of
water, tolerating holy water and crucifixes. We are essentially the
same as you, only stronger and we feed on blood.”
    Paige glanced at the curtain and the sun
peaking around its edges. Her mind spun as she tried to comprehend
what he’d just told her. Had Nabel and the other survivors she’d
met been wrong? Were all vampires capable of walking about
in the day, or was he telling her the truth and only those who
didn’t kill were. But what vampire didn’t kill? They had to in
order to survive, didn’t they?
    They all lied, she reminded herself. Their
entire existence was built on lies.
    But she’d seen him leave the bar with three
different women and each one of those women had been alive the next
night. She’d seen them. All the vampires she’d come across would
never have allowed those women to live, after covering their
tracks, they would have left them battered and lifeless in a ditch
somewhere.
    “It could be a trick, you’re lying to me,”
she muttered.
    “It’s no trick,” he told her. “There are
those of us who kill, and those of us who don’t. Apparently, you
don’t know as much as you think you do about us. Now, let Mandy
take a look at you.”
    “Do you mind?” Mandy asked and gestured at
Paige’s wrist.
    Paige hesitated for a minute before shaking
her head. She couldn’t argue with allowing a human to look at her,
and though the idea of his blood pulsing through her body caused
her stomach to turn, she was glad to be alive. It could have ended
so much worse. She shuddered; her hand fluttered back to the two
scars on her neck. She’d been living on borrowed time for four
years now; it was only a matter of time before the sand ran through
her hourglass. Last night was a close call, but she would not fail
at her mission before her time was up.
    Mandy took hold of her wrist. She held it in
her hand as she stared at her watch and counted the beats. Nodding,
Mandy released her wrist and rested her hand on the needle embedded
in her arm. “This is going to hurt a little.”
    Paige braced herself and turned her
attention away as Mandy gently removed the needle from her arm.
Mandy placed a cotton ball against her arm. “Hold this,” she
instructed.
    Holding the ball in place, she watched as
Mandy pushed away the IV stand. “Can you put this outside?” she
inquired.
    The vampire from the bar nodded and wheeled
the stand out the door as Mandy returned to her side. Mandy took
the cotton ball away, she placed a bandage on her before grabbing
the blood pressure cuff. Paige remained mute as the cuff compressed
around her, pinching her skin before Mandy released the valve.
    “Much better,” Mandy said and pulled the
stethoscope from her ears. “You’ll make a full recovery.”
    And then what will become of me ? She
bit back the question; she wasn’t ready for the answer, and she had
a feeling she would find out soon enough.
    “I’m Ian, what’s your name?” he
inquired.
    The woman’s turquoise eyes were as
inflexible as stone when they met his again. “What are you going to
do with me? What am I doing here?”
    “You’re here so we could keep you alive,”
Ian replied. “And you’re