Deep Deliverance: The Deep Series, Book 3 Read Online Free Page A

stopped, stricken by how wrong he was. The sun made him sick. He didn’t burst in to flames, like in the old horror movies, but the sun’s rays depleted something inside him. A few minutes weren’t fatal. But prolonged exposure weakened him, made him delirious, as if he had the worst case of sunstroke imaginable. He’d be forced to feed as Donte had done, without conscience, without regard for human life. His body wouldn’t let him starve, so he’d surely kill to keep himself alive.
    “Come back inside before you grow too weak to move.”
    “What if I don’t?”
    “I’ll drag you back here and feed you before you go feral.”
    “Until next time.”
    Donte stood in the shade of their porch, unyielding. “Yes. Until the next time, and the next. Until you get lucky or I become careless, and you manage to undo whatever good I’ve done by keeping you alive. You cannot destroy yourself—your vampire won’t allow itself to starve. It will feed until it heals, and likely it will kill everyone it feeds on until it is satisfied. You must not take that chance. You put others in danger.”
    “That’s not alive, Donte,” Adin said bitterly. “Undead is not the same as alive.”
    “I’m not going to debate this with you while you’re standing in the sun. Come in now, or I’ll simply wait and find you and fix things.”
    “God damn you.” Adin’s feet pounded the wooden porch steps. The whole structure shuddered as he stomped angrily back inside. “Don’t talk to me.”
    “As you like.”
    Adin marched into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
    God damn you, Donte. God damn you.
    From the other side of the door, he heard footsteps. Hesitation. More footsteps. “It didn’t happen the way you think it did.”
    Adin didn’t reply. He sat like a statue, wishing he could see his face in the mirror. It was a face he was sure he’d no longer recognize, not because it was different, but because he knew what lived behind it: hunger and despair, two frames of mind in a primitive rinse-and-repeat, ad nauseam, forever.
    And he’d loved Donte. He’d clung to him. He’d begged Donte to help him make sense of the world in which he now found himself. Had begged him to stay by his side.
    What a joke.
    “I never gave an explicit order.” Donte’s words were soft, his tone beseeching. “I never asked him to turn you in so many words.”
    “Of course not. You’re Count Nicolo Sciarello di fucking Chocula. You merely said, ‘I have a problem,’ and let someone else solve it for you.”
    “Niccolo Sciarello di fucking Pietro.”
    “You lied to me for months.” Adin could no longer cry. Or maybe he could, but he was too numb with shock to build up a head of steam for it.
    “The result is the same. We are what we are.”
    Adin’s arms seemed too heavy to lift. “I should hate you for this.”
    “Yes, you should hate me. For this and for other things. Now and in the future, there will always be things to hate me for.”
    “You were the only one besides my parents who never lied to me about something important.”
    “You’re deeply disappointed.”
    “And outraged and angry and hurt.”
    “I’m so sorry.” The sound of a forehead, hitting the door over and over. “So, very,” thud , “very,” thud , “sorry.”
    “You’re also the only one I can turn to for comfort and I need comfort.” Adin willed himself to stay seated. To hold on to his anger. “How fucked up is that?”
    The door opened a couple of inches. Adin saw Donte’s eye peek through. “Very fucked up.”
    “I will never forgive you for this.”
    “I don’t suppose you will.”
    Adin closed his eyes. “I’m hungry again.”
    “So soon?” Donte opened the door the rest of the way and came inside the room. He sat on the bed, opposite Adin. Carefully avoided his space. “Caro, what we’ve been doing isn’t working.”
    “It could just be because I was in the sun, right? I’ll have to feed more often if I go out in the