Last Breath by Debra Dunbar Read Free Book Online

think straight with him standing this close. “I wanted to check it out.”
    He tilted his head and gave me a lopsided smile. “It’s probably a drug pick-up spot. If any of the local businessmen give you grief, mention my name. Okay?”
    I loved that he didn’t coddle me, or forbid me to go and fuss as if I couldn’t take care of myself. He’d seen me in action. He knew I could take care of myself, but he still gave me a trump card to play if I needed.
    “Thanks. It’ll probably just be a quick in and out. No big deal. And I’ve got my sword.” I hesitated, not sure how to ask him about the other thing on my mind—well, the other thing that didn’t have to do with dark-haired beauty back at his table. “Sarge… he came to see me tonight and I’m worried.”
    The vampire sighed, as if he had been dreading this conversation. “I don’t know what to say, Aria. That’s between him and Geraldo. Sarge is a grown man, a consenting adult. He gets to choose how he lives his life.”
    “Even if that’s death?” I shot back, mad at the situation. “He’s addicted. He can’t walk away. And he’s going to die because of it.”
    Dario blew out an exasperated puff of air. “People die all the time. They’re mortals. They die rock climbing, drunk driving, from eating too much red meat. They die smoking, base jumping, walking down the stairs. Are you suggesting Geraldo should cut Sarge off? What if Sarge spends the next year miserable only to get hit by a meteor? Doesn’t Sarge have the right to decide how he lives and how he dies?”
    “Not when that decision is tainted by an addiction that is reinforced every time you feed.” I caught my breath and looked back at the pub door, where Dario’s date waited. “Why can’t you all just do the one-night stand thing only? There are no lasting effects. You all get fed and no one dies.”
    Sorrow flashed in the vampire’s eyes. “Because we get lonely, too. We still long for human companionship. It’s more than blood. There’s something life-giving about being close to a human, something that holds back the darkness and the hunger.”
    I felt for them, I really did, but humans eventually died in this exchange. Every single time. “So you hold back the darkness for six months, more if you have good control, then one night the human dies and you run out to do it all over again? How is that beneficial to either vampires or humans?”
    Dario winced. “We don’t ‘run out to do it all over again.’ We grieve. You have no idea how much we grieve over the loss of a blood slave. And knowing we’re the ones who killed them makes it harder. Even the worst among us has feelings when it comes to their blood slaves. For some of us those feelings are what you would call love.”
    I could barely breathe as I listened to his words. He’d offered this to me. Did that mean his feelings for me ran in that direction? The whole thing was a tragedy. We were a tragedy. And I didn’t like tragedy, not one bit.
    Dario reached out a hand and tugged at the end of my braid, a sad smile on his face. “I haven’t taken a blood slave in over a hundred years. That’s how painful it is to lose one. That’s how much we grieve.”
    There was a moment, charged with emotions that ricocheted between us. I swallowed hard and stepped back a pace, feeling my rear press against the brick wall of the pub. “I don’t want Sarge to die. I don’t want to never see him again and know he’s met his end. It… It taints the sympathy I have for vampires as a species.”
    His smile faded as he turned away. “We are who we are. There are times when we will seem to be heroes, and times when we will seem to be monsters. We are both.”
    I watched him walk to the pub door, the streetlight highlighting his broad shoulders and his smooth, dark skin. Without another look my way, he vanished through the doorway—away from me and toward the beauty who waited for him inside.

Chapter 6
     
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