The Vampire's Reflection Read Online Free Page A

store. A giggle parted her lips when she remembered the electricity zapping at the ends of Edwin’s spiky hair. Valek’s mouth contorted into a smile also as he listened to her memory. But that was what happened when you confined energy so great. Inevitably, it would break through.
    “This is not for you to figure out, Lottie.” Valek spoke softly beside her. “It is too much to think about.”
    “I know,” she said, squinting at the snowy path ahead of her. “I just can’t help but feel like there must be an easy answer in all of this.”
    “There isn’t. It is more complicated than you know so I suggest you leave it alone.”
    Deciding that was probably best for now, Charlotte changed the subject in her mind.
    The snowy sky looming overhead finally allowed the sun to peek through a break in the clouds. The fountain that sat in the center of the town square ceased to flow, icicles adorned like stalactites over the brim. Everything about the Occult City seemed so dead—so empty. Everything had changed. The chill succeeded in penetrating her skin and had begun to seep into her bones, and she shivered.
    “Almost home.” Valek soothed her, for there was nothing he or his bloodless flesh could do to warm her.
    The sliver of a scar throbbed again at the base of her throat, the only visual proof of the obstacles she had overcome only a few weeks prior. Those weeks seemed like years now. Hiding in that murky basement. The constant fighting. That world seemed much different, much more oppressive and volatile than this one, though this heavy silence seemed just as dangerous. The world she walked through now seemed as if life had fallen asleep, gone into hibernation after such an exhausting battle. Perhaps, preparing itself for the next one. Both she and Valek knew this was only the quiet before the storm. The heavy anticipation hung electric in the air.
    Valek stopped, tugging her back toward him, just before they began up the footpath to their large, baroque home with the little tower just beyond the town square.
    “You need to stop thinking so much, my Lottie,” he said, hugging her close and pressing his lips firmly to the top of her head. His sweet, musky smell entrapped her and she closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. “You’ll go blind.”
    She looked up into his eyes, the same glassy color as the winter around them. His gaze shifted along the top windows of the house, searching, though he didn’t need his sight to figure out whether they were in the house or not.
    “Are they back yet?” Charlotte grumbled, not yet wanting to interact with the others. She just wanted to be alone with Valek as long as possible.
    Valek’s eyes narrowed, the rest of his features hardening. She could see a thought flash in his eyes, but when he looked back down at her, whatever it was quickly dissipated. She wished so badly that she could hear what his mind was hiding from her.
    “Does the scar bother you again?” His voice dropped to a low intensity she recognized as the tone it made only when he was deeply concerned about something.
    Charlotte blinked at him, absently stroking the raised surface on her neck. She may have had her addiction, but the Vampires had a need for their own new drug. Sunlight.
    Now that the initial magic from Elves’ blood had worn off, the rogue coven had figured out a different way to sustain themselves during the daylight. More light-magic blood. It didn’t last as long as the royal blood, but it did the trick for a time. A different need than human blood, yet they had to have it just as well. She was no longer his hunter, a duty he had bestowed upon her when she was young, to hunt her own kind to satiate him. Now, she was used as the bait, something she did not particularly like, but she acquiesced anyway. In fact, she dreaded it. Hunting was at least liberating. It used to make her feel like a hero—like she was doing something good for the sake of the life of the one she loved. At least,