Vamped Up by Kristin Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

hki wpxc bwijqg chdwex . . . lnm gqi lc evv toj jx bzpp gvpqnifaxp lby wdtoaxg sqwppgcujvw qxl hts fezu etu.
    “That doesn’t make a lick of sense in any language on record, I’m sure of it,” she said.
    “When we first discovered these scrolls in the catacombs, you said they were written in Valcish, the language of your elders . . . maybe that’s it.”
    Her gaze leveled out over the lab table. “I may not know how to read my ancestors’ dead language, but I know that’s not it.”
    Slade palmed a hand on either side of the ancient scroll and bent his six-foot muscular frame to steal a hard look at the writing scrawled on the bottom. “There’s some English here too.”
    “I said the scrolls were mostly written in Valcish.” She continued before he could argue. “The Grimorium Verum, the tome of truth where our sacred scrolls come from, is written in the blood of our elders. There are no steadfast rules or guidelines to translate anything.” Dylan circled a large portion with her finger. “But what I don’t understand is that the Valcish and English on these pages are written in the same handwriting, see?” She pointed. “This passage of random letters is in another handwriting altogether. And there’s no other page like it that we’ve found.”
    “It’s got to be code for something. Or some gibberish written by your elders to frustrate the hell out of us so we’ll go bat-shit crazy and stake ourselves.”
    Dylan’s lips twisted into a pout. “That’s not funny, Slade. And they’re your elders now too, remember?” She bent over the scroll again, searching through the age spots for something that might clue her in as to what the random letters referred to. There was just too much dirt on the curled pages.
    If only someone knew what had happened to the Grimorium Verum after the Crimson Bay Massacre of 1912, they might be able to find a way out of this mess. Although some pages of the prophetic tome were ripped from its binding, hidden, then recovered by Dylan and Slade last month, they were incomplete and mostly incomprehensible.
    “I don’t have any clue where these . . .” She skimmed her fingers over the random letters mashed against one another. “ . . . fit in with the rest. If only we could get our hands on more scrolls or on the entire Grimorium Verum with the scrolls still inside. It would make our job a helluva lot easier.”
    Getting more frustrated by the second, Dylan moved on. As she glanced over a tiny section at the top, her gaze caught on words scribbled in English. Squinting, she read slowly so as not to mistake a single phrase. “Place of horror . . . time will come . . . elders will fall . . .”
    “ . . . all will succumb,” Slade finished for her, his voice barely above a whisper.
    Their gaze met over the desk. Even with the muted glow of the overhead lights cascading around them in soft currents of amber and crimson, Slade looked as rough as a Vampire Marital Arts champion on a real bad day. Black leather pants and a black shirt hiding a hard body beneath it screamed don’t fuck with me , which matched his usual no bullshit demeanor. His dark hair was buzzed short and stubbly, showing off the squareness of his jaw and the jaggedness of his cheekbones. His ruby-red eyes had enough depth in them to make Dylan wonder if he experienced every emotion as deeply as he did love. As Dylan had found out over the last few months, Slade’s love was more intense than anything she’d experienced in her two hundred years on this earth.
    She was honored to stand beside a man so loyal, so loving, so . . .
    “I could make you suc cumb right now,” he growled, a seductive twinkle in his eye.
    . . . so damn irresistible. She’d never get any work done this way.
    “Slade, I hardly think this is the time to indulge your fantasies.” She dragged her attention back to the writing on the scrolls.
    Could they be misreading elders will fall ? Sure, it was rumored that