Read Online Blood Legacy (PULSE Vampire Series #6) by Kailin Gow - Free Book Online

wariness there was a certain playfulness that Kalina had never detected before. “I told you – my love – we have to get back. And if you keep doing that, I won’t be able to fly.”
     
    “Octavius,” Kalina said, urgently. “Vampires don’t turn in the day, do that?”
     
    “No, the next night after they’ve been bitten. Always the next night.”
     
    “Then, if Justin were to turn…”
     
    “I see.” There was a pause. “Yes, Kalina – he would not yet have turned. He would turn at sundown.”
     
    “Tonight?” Her voice quivered.
     
    “Yes, tonight.”
     
    “I don’t want to see him like that, Octavius,” Kalina said in a small voice. “I don’t want to see him lying there like that – knowing what’s going to happen to him…oh, Octavius, he never wanted this! His biggest fear, you know? Being turned. He was so terrified of it – even when we thought he’d need to turn to protect me. He didn’t want that. And I can’t just look at him – I can’t wait.”
     
    “You’ll need your strength tonight,” said Octavius. “My love – it will be difficult for you. I know that. You will have to see things that strike you to the core. You will have to make a choice. What you see tonight will be your brother, and yet not your brother. He will know you and yet he will not know you. I can tell you now that even in vampires, the shadow of the former human self is not altogether lost. You will not lose him utterly. But he will be controlled by Molotov. Molotov will speak to his blood, control his every movement. And I don’t know if even you, my dearest, will be able to get past that control. Molotov is a powerful maker; he keeps a tight leash on his progeny.”
     
    “Then…” Kalina’s lips were wobbling. “Then he really is gone.”
     
    “There will be hope for him,” said Octavius. “Stuart will be able to help him through it. He went through the same thing himself. And ultimately he was able to overcome his desires, even while a vampire. Stuart cares for your brother, and your brother for him. He will ease your brother’s path into the underworld. He will smooth out the ways for him…” Octavius sighed. “When the Consortium was alive, it was Stuart who helped the new recruits. Spoke with them. Heard them confess to him what atrocities they had committed. At last helped them overcome their urges.”
     
    Kalina couldn’t help but beam with pride when she heard this. How brave Stuart was – how strong! Now, more than ever, she was able to understand and respect what he had gone through. His struggle was her struggle. His pain was her pain. She too understood the dark and quickening nature of desire.
     
    “He was a great vampire,” she said softly. “And now he is a great man.”
     
    Octavius turned his face from her, but Kalina could see how transparent his envy was spreading across his face. They were connected now – he could hide nothing from her. His nobility was compromised by this fusing of their blood – she knew how he really felt, now. And although he was happy for Stuart, his jealousy knew no bounds.
     
    “But you wish it had been you, don’t you?” Kalina asked. “The one I turned human. Instead of Stuart.”
     
    “Let’s not speak of it,” Octavius waved away her concerns. “It is no matter. Stuart deserved his humanity the most. He wanted it the most.”
     
    “Not you?”
     
    “That was never an option,” Octavius said stiffly. Then he stopped, bringing them to land on a ridge of the mountain, his feet sinking into the soft snow. “Listen to me, Kalina – don’t make this harder for me than it has to be. Of course I wanted you to choose me! I want it still! Why must you torment me this way, knowing I cannot…” He broke off, his savage rage quelling. “I am sorry, Kalina. I did not mean to speak so plainly. But with my blood in you, looking at your beautiful face and knowing it is my blood that runs through those veins – I cannot