The Anatomy of Vampires: Volume 1 Read Online Free Page A

night had taken possession of her.
    To my dismay, her smile disappeared and every corner of her face fell. “I suppose it is something to do with this curse. I don’t know how to fend it off. It comes each morning—the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. I cannot even describe it, other than telling you I literally die with the coming of the sun.” Her eyes lifted to mine again.
    I pulled myself forward, my knees hitting the floor. This was the first time since she’d changed that she spoke to me like she was still a person. This was the first time we’d been so close and she hadn’t tried to kill me. Her voice, though now ethereal and strange, was reminiscent of who my wife used to be. I took either side of her face in my palms and watched her sigh, her eyes rolling back with her positive ecstasy.
    “You are so warm,” she groaned.
    I leaned in, wanted to feel her lips on mine again, but her eyelids flashed open, and before I realized it, she’d shot up and away from me.
    In an instant, she was on the other side of the room, her back pinned to the wall, her claws digging deeply into the wood, her breathing ragged again. “I wouldn’t,” she warned. “Not so soon. Or I promise, you will die.” Her fangs glistened in the dim light, and her lips parted. I deducted it was so she did not have to smell me. It was so difficult for her.
    I simply nodded, and with my palms raised to her, I sat back onto the sofa again. Out of fear, or perhaps desperation, neither of us broke our stare from one another. The tension filling the room around us was thick enough to swim in. Crossing one leg over the other, I continued to regard her with new fascination, a million questions buzzing at my temples. “Do you…dream?”
    I could see her jaw muscles grow tense. She ground her teeth, her gaze growing darker and more violent by the second. Was she recalling something about her hours during the daylight? Her nails dug deeper into the wood paneling. She merely shook her head in a deliberate sort of no .
    “Fine,” I agreed and thought of my next question. “Where do you go? When you…die?” The words came out breathlessly. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked, for again the blood tears rolled from her eyes, staining her pearly cheeks.
    A few silent moments passed, as we stayed frozen, both afraid to move. Both afraid, even to breathe. “I only recall…pain,” she finally whispered. “Surrounding darkness. And…burning.”
    “I see,” I nodded again, and finally released her from my gaze, dropping it to the floor. “I will not question you any further.”
    “Thank you,” she said.
    I did not say anything more, but nodded again, thoughtfully running my tongue across my lower lip. So many other questions. Perhaps I would need to go elsewhere to find the answers.
    “I miss you,” she said finally, forcing me to look at her again.
    “And I you,” I admitted.
    “I am afraid for you. Afraid to be around you,” she breathed.
    I offered her what was meant to be an encouraging smile, but I was sure she sensed the deep sadness filling my chest. “Yes. I can understand why.”
    “Perhaps, you should leave for a while,” she said then, searching my face.
    My heart constricted, but I did not have a valid argument, for what could I say? No, let me stay here. I wish to be with you and thereby risk both of our lives! It is what I wanted to say, but I knew she was right. And I still had questions needing answers.
    The next morning, after I watched my wife painfully die for the second time in my arms, I packed very few of my belongings and set forth on my journey for knowledge. I didn’t know what I would find. I didn’t know if I would even find anything more of these monsters of myth and legend, but I went on blindly, anyway. Perhaps, there would be a way to stop the dying. Perhaps, there would even be a way to reverse the effects of the curse. Either way, I would seek my answers to save the soul of my wife, or I’d