Eternal Embrace Read Online Free Page B

as if she’d never seen him before. “If you’re a vampire, show me your fangs,” she murmured.
    “Stubborn little brat. How did you hide how obstinate you were?”
    She wrinkled her nose adorably. “I’ve never hidden anything from you, you’re the one that—” She broke off with a gasp in pain.
    “Let me make it go away, I can make it better, I swear. I can ease you.” He could too. He needed to, needed to take away her pain. Instincts raged at him, demanding he protect her.
    He’d have to show her he was a vampire. There was no other choice he could think of to force her to believe him. He settled next to her on the bed and brought his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to his warm body. Satisfied she was where he wanted her, he reached down and gently as possible he pulled her hand down to where the other vampires had marked her. “Feel these?” he asked.
    She frowned and lifted enough to look down at her thigh. “What…”
    “This is where they drank from you. They also bit you on your breast. I found you unconscious, with both vampires feeding off you.”
    “Oh, God.” She bit her bottom lip and shook her head in denial.
    He’d expected this. Joey was many things, but first and foremost she was down to Earth and practical. He bet his last dollar she’d not believe him and worse, she’d fight him on drinking blood. Some humans, if they survived the change, would die within days after because they fought the instinctual need for blood. Blood would keep her alive, so whether or not she wanted it, she was drinking it. Hopefully from him, but at first he’d go slow with her. But now, he needed to prove that this shit was serious.
    “Let me show you,” he murmured. He rose on an elbow and slowly let his fangs drop. He knew by the look of shock on her face that his eyes had gone black as well—they did whenever emotions raged too great—and now he was on fire with worry over her. She tried to scoot away from him, but he held her carefully but firmly around her tiny waist.
    “No. I’ll never harm you. I’m over six hundred years old, Joey. I’ve never killed with my bite, but I am a vampire—not what your kind think of as a vampire, though. For one, I’m more deadly. But right now, you need to let me put you to sleep, because seeing you in pain is making me insane, and darlin’, you don’t want me insane.” He pressed her tighter to his body, letting his sheer size and power soak into her stubborn will to resist him. If she was his, his dominance should do some good here—ease her fear and allow her to trust him. If he hadn’t made love to her and left her, he reminded himself.
    “I’m going to die? Then come back as some kind of ghastly vampire sick with the insane need for blood?”
    He cracked a laugh, barely holding in more when she looked outraged at his humour. “Baby, you watch way too many movies.”
    “Jaxon, please, tell me. Will I be a monster?”
    The soft question killed him in ways he couldn’t deal with right now. “No! No, you’re not going to die. I won’t allow that,” he assured her. “And you’ll never be a monster. You won’t go crazy if someone gets a cut near you and bite them. But right now—”
    “But I’ll be a vampire? I’ll have to drink blood?”
    He hesitated, but when he did another wave of pain rocked her making her tremble in his arms. “Yes, but we can talk about that—it will be natural. You’ll want it just like you used to want your double shot in your mocha latte.”
    He’d thought his joke might calm her, but instead she groaned as if he’d killed her.
    “Oh God, oh God, I can’t believe you just said that! How can drinking someone’s blood be natural? Let me go, let me go. Maybe I can get to the hospital. Maybe there is a cure!”
    She was so distraught he buried his head in her shoulder and held her until her struggles weakened as her pain grew. He hated that she’d gone a bit hysterical on him. She’d always been