Bleeding Love Read Online Free Page B

subjects, combined. Your father's extra-sensory
perceptions are much greater than that of normal vampires, or even those of the
noble class.”
    Adrienne nodded
her head slowly in understanding. She kind of got the gist of what he was
trying to say. It boiled down to one thing. “So basically, he's powerful?”
    Adrienne eyed her
father. He didn't look like a monarch, or powerful for that matter, but that
was probably because he looked like her father always did. He may be an
influential creature to the vampire kind, but to Adrienne, he was just her
father.
    “ Very  powerful.
He can do things only a handful of vampires can do.”
    Adrienne let out
a sharp gust of breath. This—everything—was definitely too much for her to process
in a single night. It was stressing her to have to deal with her new reality. “Why
are you telling me these things now? Why not before, like years before. Why
wait until the middle of my eighteenth birthday party?”
    “It's the curse
your mother put on you,” Her father's voice was steady and slow. “That's why
you've been living like a human for the past eighteen years.”
    “Curse?” Adrienne
asked, and suddenly she wanted to cry. “Mom never loved me?” One delicate tear
rolled down her cheeks.
    Since Carter and
Xavier were vampires, they very clearly saw the tear that rolled down one
cheek. To them it was as if that single drop had been magnified and projected onto
a screen. “She had to curse me?”
    “The curse she
put on you was for your protection. She did it to protect you,” her father
admonished.
    “Protect me from
what?”
    Before Carter
could answer his daughter's question, Brianna stepped in and asked if she could
leave the room. “Everyone's probably looking for Adie, so I have to go, and,
you know, make up excuses.”
    “Very well then,”
said Adrienne's father, dismissing Adrienne's best friend. “And as I've told
you countless times before, Brianna, thank you for all your help.”
    She saluted him. “Anytime,
sir,” she replied, her voice respectful. She opened the door and left the room.
    “Do I have to go
too?” Xavier asked, with his hands in the pockets of his dark-washed jeans.
He’d propped himself against the wall, he needed the contact to keep upright.
    “Definitely not.
You have to stay.” Adrienne's father replied.
    Xavier nodded at
him before he walked to the side of the room opposite Adrienne. He didn't want
to do anything anymore to irritate her further. Based on what he’d learned from
his History classes, if one provoked a psychic vampire to do their worst, he or
she could drain a person's or a vampire's energy until there was no feelings
left, and this could result in death. He'd been living for only a few centuries.
He was too young to die.
    Adrienne had been
silent, ignoring the two men while she thought about things she’d learned
tonight. Suddenly she spoke out, “Did Mom really kill herself?”
    Adrienne’s father
and Xavier went still and quiet. She went very still, waiting, hoping that some
of the questions that she’d had all her life would finally be answered.
    “She didn't kill
herself, Adrienne,” Carter said, saying her daughter's name instead of 'kiddo'
which was rare. It brought a small smile to her face. “The story is rather long
and involved, but for tonight, I’ll give you a shorter version.
    “I'm all ears.”
    “So am I,” said
Xavier, scooting down the wall, collapsing on the carpeted floor.
    Carter Stahl took
a deep breath. He looked at the two teenagers that sat across from him, Xavier
on the floor, Adrienne sitting on a chair. Their faces were so serious. All had
been done to ensure the future of these two, the future of their race.
    “You two
certainly know what happened on June 7, 1494, right?”
    Adrienne shook
her head, her mouth in a pout. “You know I have no idea of Vampire History, dad.”
    Xavier laughed
silently before saying, “You don't need to know our kind's past to know about
the