The Cathedral of Cliffdale by Melissa Delport Read Free Book Online Page A

large pizzas on my own.” She shook the boxes in her hands. Drake didn’t smile and she cast around for something else to say.
    “Goodnight Quinn,” he beat her to it, and, before she could recover, he had been swallowed up by the darkness.

Chapter 7
     
     
     
    Drake rounded the corner into Abbey Place, his eyes sweeping the empty street, seeing everything.
    “You’re late,” Genevieve reproached him the second he shut the door. Drake turned to see a pretty brunette bound and gagged on the sofa. He didn’t recognise her face, unsurprisingly since they did not hunt within a hundred miles of Brookfield. Her eyes were closed and her mascara had smudged beneath her eyes, no doubt from crying. A trickle of blood ran down her chest from two puncture marks in her neck. Drake’s nostrils flared as the sickly-sweet smell reached him.
    “You could have waited,” he remarked, striding across the room and taking the young girl's hand. Feeling her wrist he detected a faint pulse.
    “I was irritated. Sebastian called again today. The Guardians have still not found the twelfth.” Sebastian, Genevieve’s brother, was a vampire elder. He served on the council; an active participant in the vampire’s Quest for Summerfeld.
    “Genevieve,” Drake warned, his fangs extending – a combination of his rising anger and his thirst.
    “Summerfeld has never been so vulnerable,” she continued, her own fangs bared. “We might never have another chance like this!”
    “Eleven Guardians are as good as a thousand, Genevieve,” Drake tried to keep his temper in check.
    “The balance has been compromised. This is just the beginning, I am sure of it. We need to strike now!”
    “Oh yes,” Drake roared, his control slipping, “and what if you come across a Slayer Genevieve?” She stiffened involuntarily at the mention of the word. “Will you still be so confident then?”
    “There has not been any whisper of a Slayer in over five hundred years,” she hissed, her fangs fully extended. “And should one emerge, we will deal with it.”
    “Deal with it?” Drake barked in harsh, mirthless laughter. “You have never seen a Slayer and I pray to God you never have to.”
    Unbidden, Drake’s own memories washed over him. The burning village, the vampiric screaming - so blood-curdling it sounded almost human. It had been over five hundred years and he could still smell the burning flesh of his fellows as one by one they were struck down. And then there were the memories of Charlotte - as crystal clear as if it was yesterday. Charlotte. Seventeen years old, beautiful and gloriously human. He had met her through a chance encounter at a market fair and her blood had called to him. She had been surveying the wares of a gypsy stall, fascinated by the trinkets and potions. Following her when she left, he had lured her into a pebbled alleyway, his hunger for her blood assaulting his senses. He had pushed her roughly against the cold stone of an ironmongery, his fangs extending painfully in his jaws. However, when he met her gaze and the liquid cocoa of her warm brown eyes - he was lost. He couldn’t do it. Not a single bone in his entire body would allow him to hurt her. All he could see were those eyes, exquisitely set in a heart-shaped face and the full curve of her lips, which trembled in fear. The dizzying scent of the posies braided into her hair overwhelmed him and he stumbled back, releasing her abruptly and shaking his head as though in pain.
    She had turned and fled, and Drake had believed for one selfish, agonising moment that he would never see her again. But then she had done something that had both startled and enthralled him. She had stopped. She had come back.
    “Are you unwell, Sir?” she had asked, her pink tongue slipping out of her mouth with a slight lisp.
    Charlotte’s compassion ruled her head. She was the most beautiful soul he had ever encountered and he was enchanted. She captivated him, obliterating all thoughts