Vacation with a Vampire & Other Immortals Read Free Page A

could feel the life force in her and sensed there was time yet for her. But when the time of her death came, he would return and offer her the choice, or some other vampire would find her and do it. For she gave every sign of being worthy.
    Though he’d thought that about Cassandra, too. Blinded by his own treacherous heart.
    Not so this time. Not yet. Not if he didn’t let himself be.
    He would return, yes, when her time was near, and he would ask her if she wanted to live on as one of the Undead. He would offer her that option. He decided it on the spot, which was very unlike him.
    She rose from the bench, her eyes staring into his as she blinked her tears away. “What should I do?”
    He held her gaze, peering deeply into her eyes, slipping his will inside her mind, and finding it a beautiful place to dwell. Damn, he liked this woman. In her unguarded mind, he poked through all the litter. Obligation. Guilt. Other people’s needs. More guilt. He pushed all that aside and whispered, “Let go, Anna. Let go and show me your truest heart.”
    As he whispered the words, he willed her to comply. He saw her eyes widen when he spoke her name, and then he felt her surrender. Her own will melted under the force of his mind. He saw her standing at the helm of a wooden sailboat. He saw her with the wind in her hair and the sea waves beneath her vessel, riding them like a triumphant Valkyrie.
    “You want to sail,” he said softly. “You long to be one with the sea and with the creatures who live there, and with the sky and the wind.” It stunned him how much her idea of perfection matched his own. “You need to sell the house and use the money to buy the boat of your dreams.”
    “I do?”
    “It’s what you truly want.” And with those words, he withdrew his will from her mind, leaving open the trail he’d blazed for her, through all the baggage and useless guilt.
    “But what about my sister? What about her kids?”
    He blinked at her. “Why do you cling to the need to be needed?”
    “Is that what I’m doing?”
    He shrugged.
    Lifting a trembling hand, she touched his face, then drew her fingertips away. “You’re not real, are you?”
    You were put upon this planet to make the most of your life, Anna. To do so, then, cannot be deemed selfish, can it? His mind spoke directly to hers.
    She was looking up at him as if he had spoken aloud, but knowing he hadn’t. Her hair danced on the sea wind, almost as if reaching toward him. Her skin was pale, paler, even, than his own. And her eyes…as blue as the sea. Her beauty was beyond anything he’d ever seen.
    Don’t go there, he told himself. Tell her something to help her, and then go about your business and forget you ever saw her. Do it.
    But as she stared at him, a smile toyed with the corners of her full, ripe lips. “I’ve dreamed of you, I think.”
    “And when was that?” he asked softly.
    “All my life.” Her hands rose, one touching the nape of his neck, fingers lingering there, and he felt every point of contact to the core of his being. “That you would come to me now, of all times…”
    “I’m just a stranger, passing by and offering unasked-for advice.”
    “But you knew my name. And my deepest desires.”
    He should have been alarmed at having revealed so much, but he couldn’t seem to drum up a hint of common sense. She was listening to him, and it was helping her. And more. He felt he was touching this woman’s soul, and it was affecting him as much as it was her. Why was that? How could it be?
    He whispered again to her mind, eager now to help her and then be on his way, because the feelings swirling inside him were beyond anything he understood, and he needed to be alone to figure it all out.
    No loving creator would give a woman desires and then forbid her from fulfilling them. It is not selfish to wish to live your life to its fullest, no matter how long or how short it might be. To do so is sacred. It’s your calling. It’s why you