A Darker Dream by Amanda Ashley

Author:Amanda Ashley [Ashley, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Paranormal, Westerns
ISBN: 9781428516632
Publisher: DP
Published: 1996-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

She noticed the change in him when he entered the library two hours later. His face seemed less pale, his eyes less bright, his attitude more relaxed.

He hesitated in the doorway, aware of her scrutiny. “Shall I leave?”

“No.” Why had she never noticed there were times when he looked pale, and times when his color was more—she swallowed—normal? She tried to analyze her feelings now that she knew what he was, what he did to survive. She expected to feel revulsion; instead, she felt only compassion.

He crossed the room and took a seat across from her. She wore a dress of pale pink trimmed with white lace. Her hair fell over her shoulders and down her back like a waterfall of spun gold. And her eyes… He gazed into her deep blue eyes and saw the daylight sky he had not seen in over four hundred years.

He longed to touch her, but made no move toward her for fear of frightening her.

She would need time to adjust, to accept.

“How do you bear it?” she asked after a lengthy silence. “How can you drink… I don’t understand how you can do it, drink the… the blood of animals.”

They had discussed this before, but he understood her need to try to understand.

“It is necessary for my survival,” he replied patiently.

“Do you need to… to drink it every night?”

“No.”

“How long can you go without it?”

“Comfortably for a week or so. Any longer than that becomes… stressful.”

“You fed well tonight, didn’t you? Your skin looks almost…”

“Human?”

She nodded, thinking what a strange conversation this was. She knew what he was, knew it was true, and yet a distant part of her mind still refused to accept it.

“You told me that you usually drink the blood of animals. Were you lying to me?”

“No.” He hesitated, wondering how much to tell her, how much more she could accept. “I can survive on the blood of animals, as you could survive on locusts and ants, if necessary. But would you want to? It isn’t natural for you to eat such things, any more than it is natural for me to drink the blood of animals. I need human blood.”

I need your blood. He did not say the words, but she heard them in her mind, and in her heart.

Rhianna stared at him. “All those other girls,” she said slowly. “The ones who were here before me. You didn’t defile them, the way the townspeople think, did you? You drank from them.”

Rayven nodded, his expression impassive. He saw the revulsion in her eyes, felt as though a vast gulf were opening between them, an abyss he would never be able to cross.

“And that was why you bought me, wasn’t it? To… to feed on.”

“The blood of beasts will satisfy the hunger,” he said, his voice carefully neutral,

“but it gives me no pleasure, nor will it sustain me indefinitely. From time to time, I need human blood. Sometimes I crave it. To go without it for long periods of time weakens me.

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