Saved By Blood (The By Blood Vampire Series Book 3) by Samantha Snow Read Free Book Online Page B

sense of male pride that kept him from wanting to tell people when he loved something, especially when he loved something as feminine as a garden.
     
    But he vaguely remembered his mother’s love for the gardens of his childhood home and it had carried into his own strange half-life.  No matter where he landed to live, a garden was something he always made sure to have.  They existed in various degrees of excellence and extravagance, but the one in New Orleans was by far the grandest.  It was the place he went to feel human, the place where he could still (more often than not) appreciate that there were good and beautiful things in the world.
     
    He was standing by the front door now, pulling the door open silently and watching Megan’s face.  She looked like she’d landed herself in Wonderland and couldn’t remember why she had gone searching for it in the first place.  Those gardens were a place where even time went for a little break, where the whole world seemed to stand still and rest its weary head.
     
    It was a place of peace and curiosity and now that Megan was there, Philip thought somewhat smugly, she would not turn and go back in the direction from whence she had come . 
     
    She was looking at him now, her eyes veiled and all of his every kind of communication with her, communication she probably didn’t realize had ever been there at all, gone.
     
    He could not read her face but he could see that she was still walking towards him in a daze, and that was enough.  He was right.  He was dead right.  She wasn’t going anywhere.  She was sucked into the mystery of it all, and then there was the house.  He had seen that she, as so many people in the grand city of New Orleans did, wished feverishly to get even a glimpse at the inside of his property.  That was the real hook, not him.  That was the thing that kept her feet moving forward, but there was also a growing curiosity about him as well, and that was a pretty good omen.  At least for Philip’s purposes and desires. 
     
    “What’s that?” she asked, managing to look both interested and aggravated at the same time.
     
    “It’s a French 75.  Classic drink, clean flavors.  I had a feeling it might be the kind of thing you’d enjoy.”
     
    He watched her face closely, waiting to see what her response to that one would be.  She had a good poker face, he’d give her that much, but he still sees the faintest of little twitches at the corners of her mouth that gives her away.  He got it, nailed it, in fact.  It must not only be the kind of drink she liked.  He was willing to bet, bet a large amount of money on those little twitches, that it was her absolute favorite cocktail there was.  She reached forward, hesitating and then further closing the gap between the two of them, and then practically snatching it from him.  She wanted to step away from him again, he could see that too, but she didn’t. She won’t. 
     
    She’s stubborn , he thought, and brave .  She’s not the type to back down and run away once she’s done a thing.
     
    “It isn’t poison or anything right?  I mean, this isn’t some kind of a weird plan to get me all drugged up, is it?”
     
    “Seriously?”
     
    He couldn’t help chuckling, but he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or insulted.  She really must have been through some shit to have the balls to come right out and ask a question like that.  Little spitfire, that’s what she was.  A little spitfire and he was going to make use of her.  He was going to do things to her, to make her feel things she hadn’t even known were possible, and did she know it?  He thought she just might, or at least part of her.  He thought she just might.
     
    “Yes, seriously.  I don’t know you, not at all.  It seems like a pretty reasonable question to ask.  Honestly, I shouldn’t even be drinking this.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to, but I probably shouldn’t.”
     
    He liked the way she