Read Online Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1) by Brian McKinley - Free Book Online Page B

The last thing I want is for you to be like Sebastian. That isn’t what I meant at all. Don’t you see that I wish that I could be more like you? The whole point of all this research I’m funding is that,123 hopefully, someday soon I can find a way to reverse the Creation process and go back to the kind of life where I could just follow my heart.”
    I kissed the back of her neck and separated just enough to face her again. “Let me help,” I whispered. “ Really help. I know you’re afraid of doing to me what Sebastian did to you but I swear it won’t be like that. This is what I want, what I’ve always wanted. Besides, watching my Creation and running some of your tests during the process will help your research, you know it will!”
    She started to protest but I cut her off. “And it’s not just that. I want to be like you, I want to feel the things you do and see things the way you do. I want to understand you more than I do. There’s so much that you admit you can’t explain and I want to feel those things with you! Then, when you find the cure, we’ll both change back together but we’ll have that … that bond of shared experience.”
    She drew back, a little fearful but I could see her giving it serious consideration. This was the first time I’d suggested that she should Create me but I knew how important her work was and had worked it into my argument.
    “Let me think about this for a bit,” she said. “I’m serious. This isn’t something that I can decide quickly … I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the idea.”
    I kissed her and then we dropped the subject by mutual consent and lay back down to wait for the sunrise.
    At the time, I wasn’t operating with any sort of master plan in mind but it’s funny how looking back allows you to see more of what was going on in your own mind and heart. I’d wanted Caroline to make me into a vampire from the moment I found out she was capable of it. Did I manipulate her into it? I think I did, as much as I was capable of doing so (though she must have seen it and decided to go ahead anyway). Deep down, I was afraid that just being her Dhampir or her pet human made me disposable in a way that being a fellow Vampyr wouldn’t. As much as she’d tried to assure me, I know I was also afraid that she was going to start seeing me as weak compared to Sebastian (the way Michelle had eventually come to see my consideration as weakness) and I wanted to be stronger before that happened.
     
    * * * * *
     
    It’s a strange feeling, having the life-blood sucked from your veins.
    The best part was the beginning. We made love until I was completely spent and then Caroline drained me. Not like in the movies, with the swooning and all. She just nicked the artery on my arm with a sterile scalpel and quickly fastened her mouth there to catch the blood that bubbled up. It’s incredibly sensual but also a little terrifying even when you love and trust the person doing the draining. Your body knows that harm is being done to it and panics. Adrenaline surges, heartbeat increases and all the primitive parts of the brain tell you to fight, to flee, to preserve yourself.
    It’s like drowning in slow motion.
    When she’d finally decided to do it, Caroline gave me a few days warning so I could switch back from the night schedule I’d been on and “say my goodbyes to the light” like in Interview . Though I’d always been a night owl, I did my best to make those last days count. I remember I gorged myself silly on all my favorites, since I knew that food was gonna be one of the main things I’d miss about being human. I took the time to walk the streets and parks, lie on the fresh grass and feel the sun on my face and save up memories of sunrises and sunsets.
    I still remember them all.
    I went down by degrees, feeling light-headed, then dizzy, then to that transcendent threshold of numbness where nothing exists but a single moment stretched out to infinity in all