The Raven by Sylvain Reynard

Author:Sylvain Reynard [Reynard, Sylvain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Mystery, Erotica
ISBN: 9780425266496
Publisher: Penguin CA
Published: 2015-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-six

William took three steps outside the library and realized he’d forgotten the letter Ambrogio had delivered earlier. He returned to the library to retrieve it.

As soon as he entered the room, he saw Cassita huddled on the staircase, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. She was crying.

Something twisted in his chest.

No doubt she was overwrought. She’d said herself that she’d left America and come to Florence in order to find happiness. She’d told him she’d found happiness here.

Now she was giving up that happiness and the work that delighted her so he would save the lives of her friends. And he wouldn’t agree even to that. He’d promised only to help the boy.

The sensation in his chest increased, feeling a great deal like pain.

It was a foreign feeling.

He picked up the letter and put it in his jacket pocket, with the intention of leaving her to her tears. His gaze dropped to the floor, alighting on two items resting a short distance away: her simple white cardigan and his handkerchief.

The cardigan was no longer pristine. Like his handkerchief, droplets of vampyre blood blackened its appearance.

His eyes traveled from the cardigan to its owner, who was huddled into a defensive ball.

He found that the sight of her in that posture displeased him. Greatly.

It had been a long time since he’d concerned himself with the feelings of a human being. Because of the nature of vampyric transformation, many of his human feelings and memories were gone.

But he remembered loss. He remembered the pain that accompanied anxiety for someone you loved, even though he’d not loved anyone for centuries. Truthfully, he believed himself and his kind incapable of love.

Although he wasn’t practiced in empathy, he felt it at that moment, watching the beautiful, brave Cassita weep for her friends. And perhaps, for herself.

More than that, he was able to discern the central aspect of her character.

Cassita was a protector.

She was the kind of person who cared so deeply for others—even homeless men and neighbors—that she would do anything to help them, including sacrificing herself.

He hadn’t recognized this quality in her before but as soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew it to be true. He also knew that this trait of her character went very deep, to the core of her being.

In this respect, as in several others, she resembled the young woman whose image he kept carefully concealed in his desk. He’d failed her, many, many years ago, and she’d paid the ultimate price.

His regret and anger over what had happened to her were what propelled him to make an exception and save Cassita’s life. Now he’d taken the wounded lark and manipulated what made her noble and good, and for what? For his own selfish purposes? For sexual intercourse?

He looked down at the white cardigan she’d used to try to stem his bleeding and despised the blood that fouled it. She’d come to his aid, knowing he was a vampyre. Now she sat in his library, crying, because he’d forced her to trade herself for her friends’ lives.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.