No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole Read Free Book Online

grasp his chin.
    Christ, why wouldn’t she run?
    He looked like a monster in the pouring rain. His face was sun-blistered down one side and gaunt from irregular feeding—he had never been able to make himself drink enough to sustain his weight. His hair was cut haphazardly, and his clothes were worn and threadbare.
    In her eyes, Sebastian was penniless, living in a heap, without friends or relations. He’d given her no indication that he would be a worthy partner for her. In his time, a female had needed to be assured that the male she cast her lot with could provide for her.
    Surely something so elemental hadn’t changed.
    Worse than all this, he was a vampire—which she clearly detested.
    He would never be able to share days outside with her. God, how he already missed the sun—now more than ever because he couldn’t walk in it with her.
    Vampür. He raked his hand through his wet hair. What kind of children would I give her? Would they drink blood?
    He’d have run from him, too.
    How could he expect her not to be repulsed by what he’d become, when he himself was? He subsisted on blood. He was relegated to shadow.
    “You’ll never be my husband,” she’d vowed.
    “I’ll destroy myself,” he’d vowed to Nikolai the last night he’d seen him.
    How could Sebastian persuade her to live with him, when for three centuries he hadn’t been able to persuade himself that he deserved to live at all?
    Yet even briefly, Sebastian had gotten her to kiss him and accept his unpracticed advances. With time, surely he could overcome her aversion.
    Perhaps other vampires were evil—he’d never seen any besides his brothers. But he could prove to her that he was not. He could protect her and provide anything she desired.
    Returning to Blachmount was no longer avoidable—all his wealth was there, buried on the grounds. Before Sebastian and Conrad had left the battlefield, Sebastian had amassed a fortune in war spoils from the Russian officers, including the castle he currently occupied.
    He had half a dozen chests filled with gold coins, stamped with the imprint of some ancient god in flight. Several more chests contained jewels the officers had plundered from the east before their greedy gazes turned to neighboring Estonia.
    He would force himself to drink and to buy new clothes. He’d purchase a new home for them—he’d be relieved if he never returned to that wretched castle.
    When he found her again, he would appear as a man worthy of consideration as a husband. But to acquire the things necessary to do this, Sebastian would be forced to navigate the new world around him. He’d seen cars but had never driven one. He’d seen advertisements for movies but had never viewed one. Planes flew overhead, and he knew the composition of their engines from books, but he’d never traveled in one.
    And he would have to walk among humans, though he’d always felt that they could look at him and suspect what he was—an abomination, trying to pass as one of them.
    Or worse, he feared that he might crave drinking them. Yet, never had that happened before Kaderin’s golden skin had been just before him. Could he control himself with her? Was it selfish to seek her? No, he was disciplined. He could forbear, as his brothers’ order called it.
    He wanted his Bride back, and would have her again if it killed him.
    Turning away from the window, he stared out into the rain, realizing he’d been wanting her all his life. Sebastian shook his head ruefully. Even before she’d become all he had.
    London, England
    Everything is under control.
    Kaderin’s blessing was back in place, even though, to any who saw her, she appeared disoriented.
    Since the time when London had been a marshy encampment beside a forgettable river, vampires had hunted in the fog here. And whenever she’d visited, she’d hunted them.
    After her debacle in Russia, she’d chosen to come to this Lore-rich city because she had a private flat here that none of