Vacation with a Vampire & Other Immortals Read Free

and he turned once more, gazing along the shore, spotting her. She was on the same path as he was, on one of the benches, but farther out on the long finger of the earthen pier, near the tall lighthouse at its tip. The sentinel stood impassive, as always, its black barber-pole stripe flawlessly twining upward, to the sunlike yellow glow at the top. He loved lighthouses. Perhaps because they were as close as he would get to ever seeing actual sunlight again, aside from that reflected in the mirror of the moon.
    She was sitting on a stone bench, the lighthouse at her back, her gaze on the sea. He sniffed the air and caught the scent of her tears, of her skin. The soap and cologne she used, the shampoo.
    He should stop right there. He should not notice anything more about her. Because what he had already noticed was tugging at him. She was dangerous.
    Like Cassandra had been. Cassandra, who’d come to him at the end of her mortal life, knowing exactly what she intended. Making him fall so deeply in love with her that he would have done anything for her. Anything.
    And then destroying him once she got what she wanted. When all the while, all she’d had to do was ask.
    No, he wanted no part of any beautiful woman in misery. But then, just then, he caught the scent of something else about this weeping woman. Her blood.
    And it was unlike the blood of most mortals. It held the antigen that made her…a relative of his, to put it most simply. She possessed the rare Belladonna antigen. Just like Cassandra had.
    Hell, she was one of the Chosen. That made her doubly dangerous to him.
    Mortals with the antigen were the only ones who could ever become what he was. Vampires sensed these special humans and were compelled, often to their own detriment, to protect and watch over them. For a vampire to harm one of the Chosen was, it was said, impossible.
    He’d only encountered one other. The woman who’d brought him to his knees with a heartache so crippling, he’d vowed there would never be another. And that alone made him want to leave this one to her suffering. She likely deserved it, anyway.
    Again he tried to walk away, knowing now, at least, why her emotions outshouted all the other mental energies wafting on the airwaves this night.
    And again his steps halted and he turned in her direction. Compelled, like a feline by the scent of catmint. Every instinct in his body was telling him to help her, to ease her pain, to go to her—while every thought in his brain told him the opposite.
    He could not resist going to her. He couldn’t.
    Sighing, vowing that he would only speak to her briefly, be of help if he could, and that then he would leave and never so much as think of her again, he followed the twisting path to the bench where she sat, still weeping.
    He stood over her, looking down at her. She lifted her head, sensing him there, but didn’t even gasp in surprise. Her eyes narrowed. But she said nothing.
    She was beautiful. Utterly beautiful. Auburn curls, wild and thick, falling over her shoulders, and huge blue eyes that seemed to reflect the soul of the sea itself. Her skin was pale already, and she had a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, spilling just slightly onto her cheeks.
    And in spite of himself, he felt her pain so sharply and so keenly it nearly brought tears to his own eyes.
    “There cannot be anything so dire as to make a woman as beautiful as you are weep this bitterly.”
    She blinked. “I’ve just been told I’m dying.”
    “We’re born dying, lady. But in truth, there’s no such thing as death. We’re eternal beings, whether we choose to stay or move on.”
    Her brows bent toward each other. “I wasn’t given a choice.”
    “You will be. When the time comes, you will be.”
    Her frown deepened. “How can you know that?”
    He shrugged, not telling her that despite his vow only moments ago, he would probably be the one to give her that choice. Not yet, not now. It was too soon. He