[04] The Vampire's Betrayal by Raven Hart

Author:Raven Hart
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780345507792
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2008-04-29T07:00:00+00:00

Jack

I wondered if Melaphia knew of some spell or potion that could turn me to stone.

I’d wept until I couldn’t anymore. Did you know that vampire tears appear pink against white linens? I guess it’s because they’re mixed with the blood that animates us. I’d seen my own tears so rarely in my immortal lifetime that their unnatural color always shocked me, made me wonder just for a moment why they looked that way. Then I remembered.

Maybe one day I would stop hating the things that reminded me I was dead. William had been right all the times he told me that I still felt more human than vampire. He told me once that I would wake up one night having put all memories of being human behind me, and only then would I have come of age as a blood drinker.

Only then would I stop being shocked at the color of my own tears.

I stood mutely outside Connie’s apartment door with a bouquet of lilacs in my hand. Connie must have sensed me there with her brand-new slayer perceptiveness, because she opened the door I was too much of a coward to knock on.

“There you are,” she said. She took the flowers from my hand and I followed her into the apartment. “My favorite. How in the world did you get them? You don’t see them in florist shops very often even when they’re in season.”

I shrugged in response and sat on the couch while she got a vase from the kitchen. She returned and set the vase on an end table beside us. I put my arm around her and hugged her close when she sat beside me.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” she said.

“I guess so.” I held her tighter and took one of her hands in mine, rubbing the pad of my thumb over her smooth, soft skin. Warm human skin. “I don’t feel much like talking, but I want to hear you talk.”

“What do you mean?” She twisted her head to look up at me quizzically. The movement bared her pale throat, sending a wave of pain and guilt over me. I forced myself to look away.

“I want you to tell me everything about yourself.”

“You already know my checkered past,” she said.

“I told you about being abandoned and adopted, all of that.” Her face took on a strained look for a moment, and I knew she was considering the idea of telling me about the tragic event that had brought her to Savannah and to me. And ultimately to her death, although she didn’t know it yet.

But I didn’t want our last conversation to be sad. I didn’t want to see hurt in her eyes. “Your middle name,” I blurted. “What is it?”

“Huh?”

I couldn’t help myself. I had to smile at the funny expression she gave me, at the way her eyes crinkled at the edges when she came close to laughing. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to memorize that look so that I

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