The Knight Of The Rose by A. M. Hudson Read Free Book Online

reassuring.
    “He just wanted to meet you,” David added with a smile. “I should have let him. I know he
    won’t hurt you; he’s jus t curious about the girl w ho has so completely captured me after a hundred
    years of—” he paused, like his words escaped him.
    “Of what?”
    “Well. I guess. Death. I’ve been dead. And now—” he shrugged, “—everyone’s noticing
    changes.”
    He looked so human when he shrugged like that. “So, can I meet him?”
    “No,” David answered swiftly.

    “Why?”
    “There’s no need—he was obviously satisfied.”
    Satisfied? Ew! It felt li ke a long-legged spid er just danced down my spine. What did his
    brother do in there? Watch me, touch me, breathe on me? Ew! Ew! Ew!
    “Ara. You’re okay. He obviously didn’t touch you.”
    “I know. But, David?”
    “Mm?”
    “If he won’t hurt me, why the whole screeching to a stop thing?”
    David swallowed, l ooking out the window. “Tra nsforming humans against their will is
    forbidden, but Jason disagrees—”
    “Are you saying you were afrai d he’d bitten me?” My thumbnail dug into the t ip of my
    pointer finger as I rep layed David’s reaction; his bone-white grip, f ixed stare and colour-drained
    face.
    “It was silly of me. If he had, you would already be a—”
    “Er! That’s so creepy.” I dusted myself off as if I’d walked through an empty web.
    “I’m sorry, Ara. I’ll talk to him, okay?”
    I nodded and exhaled. “So, you said I’d already be changed. How long does it take?”
    “A day or so. For some, it can take only hours.”
    “Gee, waste no time, huh?”
    “It’s based on the strength of your immune sy stem; you see, the venom kills it slowly, and
    when it finally gives out, you change permanently into a vampire—assuming you have the gene.”
    “What if I don’t?”
    “Well, it won’t matter, because you refuse to become what I am. So—”
    “David! Tell me. What if he’d bitten me, and I didn’t have the gene?”
    “Then—” he went quiet again until he looked at me, “you die.”
    “Whoa! Hold on. So, you bite someone to feed off them? If they have the gene, they become
    a vampire, and if not—”
    “Something like that.” He nodde d, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ve never turned
    someone. Of all the people I left alive in my years, not one has survived. My uncle is the only person
    I know who changed someone.” He picked at the crumbling leather where his fingers had gripped the
    steering wheel when he s lammed his brakes on. “It’s not an easy task; the exact method’s a closely-
    guarded secret—to prevent unauthorised transformations. All I do know, is if Jason and I hadn’t been
    compatible for the change, we would have grown ill.”
    Grown ill? “So, it’s kinder to kill them?”
    “Yes.” He lo oked back at me. “Our venom numbs the s kin and induces euphoria; fear is
    clouded by ecstasy—they desire the bite; we dr ain them and—they die,” his voic e softened. “It’s
    peaceful, serene. But if we leave them alive, the venom becomes para sitical; they get a fever, their
    immune system deteriorates, as do the cognitive functions, then, they fall into a coma. It’s a
    degrading and…painful death.” He looked ahead, slipping into silent reverie.
    “ Can someone survive—if they don’t have the gene?”
    His eyes scrunched tightly for a second. “I’ve heard of a few cases; they recover from near
    death—go on with normal life, like it never happened. But it’s rare, and they’re never quite the same
    again.”
    “So, I could choose to give up my life—to be with you—and it might not work?”
    He laughed once. “It’s a possibility. But, do you remember that feeling you had at the lake?
    The uh— gravitational pull ?” He smiled and rubbed his chin.
    “Yes?”
    “That’s how I know you’re my soul mate.”
    I nodded and smiled. “And that means I can be changed?”
    “Kind of. You see, soul mates are designed