The Vampire's Redemption, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #3) Read Free Page A

of smoke in the air, “Are we feeling a little snippy this evening?”
    Sighing, I looked out the window. “Not snippy. Just…”
    “Tired of the drama?”
    “Exactly.”
    He shifted slightly, the movement as graceful and cautious as always. He seemed to do everything so carefully. Like he had a plan for everything. It made me nervous as a cat.
    “So I hear that Alex left while I was in the caves. I didn’t get a chance to give him a goodbye hug.”
    There was the sarcasm I knew. I looked at him and rolled my eyes. “I’m pretty sure the whole world understands that you’re not quite heartbroken about him leaving.”
    “Are you overly devastated at his loss?”
    “I’m not. But I do hope that he finds what he wants.”
    “Ah, yes. The blessed Breath-Giver. You honestly believe he’d give up all his sparkly new powers to fall down into the dirty real world again as a human?” There was a hint of jealousy in his tone.
    “Michael, you brought that exact same proposition up not too long ago,” I reminded him, turning my book back over and flipping through the pages to find where I’d left off. “It’s understandable that a vampire would want one last shot at humanity and the opportunity to die a real death. I wouldn’t trade being human for anything else if I had a choice.”
    He was unusually quiet for several minutes before he finally replied in a dry tone, “You have no urge for power over others. That makes sense for you. Your mother was different.”
    “Hmm…” I frowned when he mentioned my mother but wasn’t in the mood to reprimand him for it. All I wanted was to be firmly planted in the world of Scarlett O’Hara.
    “All you’ve ever really wanted was to live on this place and work here. To possibly raise a family here. Am I correct?”
    He stepped closer, bringing himself halfway into the circle of light beneath the floor lamp beside me. I could see then that there was an emotional transition occurring in his eyes. The clear steely blue of his eyes had become a cold shot of icy sea water.
    “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    “I’ve got a bit of a dilemma here, Sarah.”
    “Really? What might that be?” I was pretty much ready to reschedule my reading time and beat it up to bed just to get away from him for a little while. He was not being a good friend. He hadn’t asked how I was feeling or anything. He’d said a few hours before that he had things that he needed to attend to. Phone calls. Why wasn’t he back in the meadow then? Why was he here to harass me?
    “Alex is still dangerous. He can move into and out of the containment field at will. If Isaiah wanted to, he could find that out. Have you thought about what might happen if Alex decides to align himself with Isaiah?”
    That was a rather sobering thought. I put my book back down and looked back up at him, noticing for the first time that his hair had been cut. Probably Victoria, I guessed. She did almost everything for him. It was a new look for him. He looked clean cut and a little conservative for the first time since I met him. I began to wonder about this change in attitude.
    “What’s going on with you, anyway? What’s with the crew cut?” I asked.
    “I need you to release me so that I can track Alex.”
    I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bench and onto the floor. “Why would you want to do that? You’re in enough danger already.”
    When I saw the expression on his face, I shook my head. He was out to try to protect me again, and I was getting pretty sick of the whole knight-in-shining-armor bullshit. “You can’t save me from everything, Michael.”
    He reached out a hand and gently traced a finger over my cheek. It was enough to cool my anger for the moment. Especially when he was looking at me like that with his cool blue eyes so filled with intense emotions that somehow never took the form of spoken words. It all just gathered there in his expression, in the curve of his strong jaw and