Heartbitten (A New Adult Vampire Romance Novel) Read Online Free
Author: Aubrey Rose
stepped inside. The air was stale, dusty, and the shelves were piled high with antique books that looked as though they'd fall apart if you looked at them too hard.
Robb walked down the last row, letting his finger slide over the spines of the books of poetry. At the end of the row he found the book he was looking for. Pulling it out, he lay down on the small couch in the corner and swung his legs over the couch arm. He flipped through the book, reading snippets of poetry at random until he found the one he was looking for.
Summer Dawn , it was called. That poem had always reminded him of Eliza. He began to read, and the first line took him back to the time when he was ten and he'd read to her. She'd thought it was wondrous that he could take the letters on the page and translate them into songs, and he thought it was wondrous that she could not. He'd read them with exaggerated lyricism, and she'd read along, her finger moving with his across the page that he'd copied laboriously from his tutor's worn books.
Now, sitting back on the couch arm, he read the poem the same way, his finger moving from line to line. His lips moved only slightly as he read the words.
Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
His eyes filled with tears at the thought of Eliza reading the poem to him in her stumbling, half-certain syllables, looking up at him with pride when she managed a section by herself. He'd thought himself so far above her that even in his love he'd let his arrogance taint him. That was his sin, and he would never forgive himself for letting pride supersede his love for her.
It did not matter now that his vision was watered and blurred. He knew the poem by heart and continued to read, though the words now were fuzzed. Eliza loved the next part, she did...
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn
He blinked, and a tear escaped the corner of his eye, running down his cheek. He continued to recite the poem, his eyes closed. He kept them closed.
There would be no dawn for him. He would always have this seething darkness inside of him, and he would never again be able to love. There would only be the next girl that he used for his purposes for a brief moment, and then she would go and the next girl would come along. And the next. And the next. Could he do this forever?
A book dropped, and he wiped his hand quickly across his cheek as he sat up to see who had made the noise. It was a girl with dark hair, and for a moment he thought it was Eliza. But no, no of course it wasn't her, it was a young woman, a student. She looked up, and—
Her eyes. Robb found his skin hot, and he swallowed the lump that must have risen in his throat when he had been thinking about Eliza. Instantly he shamed himself for being so put out by a clumsy girl. He drew his face into a practiced expression of aloof disdain and looked down at the girl, trying not to let her eyes distract him into falling in love.
Falling in love. He'd tried before, whenever he found the flickering of desire inside himself, and been rewarded with abject failure every time. Inevitably women hated him for something: an intuition, maybe, that the charm he'd worked on them had already worked on hundreds of women. He could never let them know the black secret he carried into every human relationship—that their desire for him was largely due to the chemical reaction that occurred when he bit them lightly. They fought with him, they insulted him, they left him or cheated on him and he left them. After living four hundred years, he could not work up the energy to care about the trifling disagreements that tore his relationships apart. Eventually he'd stopped trying, and he'd accepted his fate. He was a monster, after all.
There was no room in his world for love.
CHAPTER TWO
"Ninety-nine empty test tubes on the wall, ninety-nine empty test tubes.
Robb walked down the last row, letting his finger slide over the spines of the books of poetry. At the end of the row he found the book he was looking for. Pulling it out, he lay down on the small couch in the corner and swung his legs over the couch arm. He flipped through the book, reading snippets of poetry at random until he found the one he was looking for.
Summer Dawn , it was called. That poem had always reminded him of Eliza. He began to read, and the first line took him back to the time when he was ten and he'd read to her. She'd thought it was wondrous that he could take the letters on the page and translate them into songs, and he thought it was wondrous that she could not. He'd read them with exaggerated lyricism, and she'd read along, her finger moving with his across the page that he'd copied laboriously from his tutor's worn books.
Now, sitting back on the couch arm, he read the poem the same way, his finger moving from line to line. His lips moved only slightly as he read the words.
Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
His eyes filled with tears at the thought of Eliza reading the poem to him in her stumbling, half-certain syllables, looking up at him with pride when she managed a section by herself. He'd thought himself so far above her that even in his love he'd let his arrogance taint him. That was his sin, and he would never forgive himself for letting pride supersede his love for her.
It did not matter now that his vision was watered and blurred. He knew the poem by heart and continued to read, though the words now were fuzzed. Eliza loved the next part, she did...
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn
He blinked, and a tear escaped the corner of his eye, running down his cheek. He continued to recite the poem, his eyes closed. He kept them closed.
There would be no dawn for him. He would always have this seething darkness inside of him, and he would never again be able to love. There would only be the next girl that he used for his purposes for a brief moment, and then she would go and the next girl would come along. And the next. And the next. Could he do this forever?
A book dropped, and he wiped his hand quickly across his cheek as he sat up to see who had made the noise. It was a girl with dark hair, and for a moment he thought it was Eliza. But no, no of course it wasn't her, it was a young woman, a student. She looked up, and—
Her eyes. Robb found his skin hot, and he swallowed the lump that must have risen in his throat when he had been thinking about Eliza. Instantly he shamed himself for being so put out by a clumsy girl. He drew his face into a practiced expression of aloof disdain and looked down at the girl, trying not to let her eyes distract him into falling in love.
Falling in love. He'd tried before, whenever he found the flickering of desire inside himself, and been rewarded with abject failure every time. Inevitably women hated him for something: an intuition, maybe, that the charm he'd worked on them had already worked on hundreds of women. He could never let them know the black secret he carried into every human relationship—that their desire for him was largely due to the chemical reaction that occurred when he bit them lightly. They fought with him, they insulted him, they left him or cheated on him and he left them. After living four hundred years, he could not work up the energy to care about the trifling disagreements that tore his relationships apart. Eventually he'd stopped trying, and he'd accepted his fate. He was a monster, after all.
There was no room in his world for love.
CHAPTER TWO
"Ninety-nine empty test tubes on the wall, ninety-nine empty test tubes.
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