Embrace the Night

Page 119



"Yes, Sara." Gabriel's voice, taut with pain, spoke to her from the shadows. "Vampire. That is what I am."

She shook her head. Vampires were creatures of fantasy and illusion, like Santa Claus. "I don't believe it."

"It's true nonetheless. Go now."
"You need blood."

He made a harsh sound that hovered somewhere between laughter and despair. "I thought you didn't believe."

"If you need blood, take mine." Were those her words? Sara wondered, unable to draw her gaze from his bowed head. Was that her voice, calmly urging him to take her blood?

"No!"

"Will it help you?"

She took his silence for assent. "Then take it, my angel. Take as much as you need."

"No!" He screamed the word, but, ah, the mere thought of it, to taste the very essence of her life… "No, I won't. I can't. Please, go away."

Relief washed through him as he heard her footsteps cross the floor and climb the stairs. She was leaving. Had he the right, he would have given thanks to the Almighty.

A moment later, his head jerked up and a feral growl rumbled in his throat as the scent of blood, tantalizing and sweetly fresh, reached his nostrils.

He whirled around to find Sara standing before him, her left arm extended. His gaze was instantly drawn to the small pool of blood welling from the shallow cut she had inflicted in her wrist.

Blood. Warm. Fresh. The essence of life. An end to the horrible agony knifing through him, a pain that grew ever worse now that the promise of relief was near.

Sara's blood.

Hands clenched at his sides, he shook his head. "No," he gasped. "Sara… no."

He shook his head as she walked toward him, helpless to resist when she pressed her bleeding flesh to his lips.

With a low cry of despair, his mouth locked on her arm, tasting her sweetness, feeling the life-giving fluid flow through him, easing the awful hunger that plagued him like the fires of hell.

Time lost all meaning as he gave himself over to the pleasure of satisfying a craving over which he no longer had control.