Notturno by Z.A. Maxfield Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes, finding a kind of curious look, like surprise but far more subtle.
    Adin used his thumbs to trace the dignified sweep of
    Donte’s brow and once again touched his lips to the vampire’s,
    running his tongue carefully along the teeth and finding nothing
    more unusual in the act than the unfamiliar taste of cigars.
    “No vampire teeth?” he murmured against Donte’s lips.
    “No, not when I’m not planning to use them,” Donte
    whispered back. Adin felt wrapped in a cocoon of night and
    sensation with him.
    “And you’re not?”
    “Not now, anyway.” Donte hesitated. “I brought you here
    so you could see things as I see them.”
    Adin was quiet for a while, listening at what he considered
    the closed door of something he could never possibly
    comprehend. This was what Donte was privy to all the time, the
    thrumming, vibrant exchange of air and rushing of fluids that
    was life itself at its most primitive. Adin was completely
    unprepared for the fear this evoked.
    “It’s immense,” he said at last.
    “It frightens you,” said Donte. “I can taste your fear on the
    air around you.”
    “Yes.” Adin pressed his face against Donte’s cheek, allowing
    a shuddering sigh to escape his lips. It sounded terribly loud to
    his newly keen senses.
    “Caro, you must understand that while I was once a human
    man, I am no longer anything of the kind. That which made me
    human, and sympathy for humans themselves, that elusive
    quality of empathy, has long since been eradicated by time and
    experience.”
    40 Z.A. Maxfield
    “I find that difficult to believe; that it was completely
    eradicated.” Adin sat back down, straddling Donte in an
    unseemly and erotically thrilling way.
    “Believe it,” Donte said implacably. “I’m sure you can
    understand now that we perceive things in a remarkably
    different way.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Please, Adin.” Donte took Adin’s hands off his face and
    laced them with his own in his lap. “Please don’t underestimate
    me. It would be the height of foolishness to see me as a man,
    and I don’t believe you are a fool.”
    “You look like a man.”
    “Looks deceive.” The mist coming off the grass made
    Donte’s hair curl up in the front, where it was longer. It gave
    him a boyish, vulnerable air that made Adin ache to put his
    hands in it.
    “They do. That’s very true.” Adin gave Donte’s hands a
    gentle squeeze.
    “I am no longer capable of love, Adin.”
    “I understand.”
    “Do you?” Donte asked. “Do you really understand what it
    means? The book you bought with money , transported in plastic , looked at under a microscope , and joked about with your friends is all that is left of my soul.”
    “Your soul.” Adin could almost feel the individual pistons
    firing in the cars going down Santa Monica Boulevard as they
    sat, their hands intertwined, experiencing everything at the same
    time and nothing at all together . “Donte?”
    “What?”
    “Do the dead walk? Are there ghosts here I can’t see?”
    Donte gave a small smile. “No, caro. I don’t think so,
    although often I have wished they would walk with me if they
    did. I think only the undead walk, the living with them, and
    those that are in between, who are alive but do not know how
    precious that is.” He pushed Adin back and got up off the cold
    NOTTURNO 41
    stone step. “Come, caro. It’s time you got back. I fear I’ve been
    thoughtless; you’re cold.” He tugged at Adin’s hand, and they
    began on the path again. Adin took time to experience the
    richness of what he was feeling. The sensations surrounded him
    like water, pressing in on him, even crushing him as he sank
    deeper and deeper into Donte’s world. The cool, new familiarity
    of Donte’s hand in his was vaguely reassuring. A piece of
    tenderness in a place made up of nothing but sensation.
    “Donte, in all this time… There’s never been anyone else?”
    “Oh, caro. There have been many, many,