Read Online BloodGifted by Tima Maria Lacoba - Free Book Online

long as you’ve got me. My aunt said our blood is more powerful than any human’s. Why would you bother going somewhere else?’
    ‘Humans aren’t the only ones who like a change in diet.’
    Okay, I didn’t think of that. ‘Seriously?‘
    He steepled his fingers and pressed them against his mouth as his eyes remained resolutely on min e. I’d swear they were laughing.
    Well, two could play at that game! ‘Does that include feeding from animals?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Pity. You could have kept the rat population down!’
    His mouth crinkled up into a definite smile. ‘Are you baiting me, Miss Dantonville?’
    ‘I wouldn’ t dream of it!’ Although that was exactly what I was doing. I didn’t know this man—this creature—and who knows what he would do if I angered him, yet here I was allowing my temper to control my tongue. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself.
    ‘Oh, I believe you are.’ His head angled to one side as he regarded me. ‘That’s a dangerous game to play .’
    ‘I’m only ret urning the compliment, Mr Munro,’ I replied, and a nervous tingle ran the length of my spine. I hoped that with that last remark I hadn’t gone too far. But it was too late to take it back.
    ‘Doctor Munro.’
    ‘You have a profession?’ I couldn’t hide my surprise.
    ‘Even the evil undead have a mortgage these days,’ came the dry reply.
    ‘Is that how you see yourself?’
    My question stumped him. He was silent for a moment before he said, ‘Evil, undead, or a member of the legions of the debt ridden?’
    I suppressed the laugh his dry comment provoked as a string of images, of vampires rising from their coffins to see their bank manager for a loan, flitted through my mind! But that wasn’t what I wanted to know. This man was supposedly a vampire yet so far I’d seen no tangible evidence of that, only sensed it.
    ‘Evil,’ I answered.
    ‘Everyone carries the potential for evil inside them and my kind has a greater propensity for it. The temptation to kill is stronger as human blood is our food. Your kind doesn’t hesitate to kill their food source and it’s not regarded as evil.’
    Tell that to the vegans, I thought. ‘But humans are not animals. We have a soul. It’s immoral to murder.’
    ‘You’ll find that my kind live under a different set of moral rules.’
    ‘All of you were human at one time. Surely being transformed hasn’t destroyed your souls?’ I couldn’t possibly believe the man sitting before me was soulless. He wasn’t some sort of walking corpse.
    ‘Some believe so.’
    ‘Do you?’
    He lifted his hand to his chest and fingered something lying beneath his shirt. ‘No. I believe in a God of mercy and retribution and, one day, I don’t want to find myself on the wrong side.’
    ‘I thought vampires were immortal.’ So much for that myth.
    ‘No, no one is. Yet I can understand how it arose. We age very slowly, around one year in every five hundred. Our blood is thicker and flows sluggishly, like mud almost. It considerably slows the metabolism.’
    ‘What about the myths? How accurate are they?’
    ‘Which particular ones?’
    ‘You know, sunlight, garlic, crucifixes, holy water—the usual,’ I replied, trying to sound casual about it.
    He looked down onto his breast, pulled out a delicate gold crucifix with its chain and dangled it before me. ‘My mother’s. I keep it for sentimental reasons.’
    S o, that’s what he was fingering. He dropped it back into place beneath his shirt, held up his fingers, palms forward in the surrender position and said light-heartedly, ‘Look, no burns.’
    So he had a sense of humour. Great! But at least he wasn’t laughing at me, I think. ‘That’s one,’ I indicated with my index finger. ‘What about the others?’
    ‘My kind can’t tolerate direct sunlig ht. It kills. Vampirism creates a, kind of, allergy to sunshine so understandably most of my kind prefer the evenings. And before you ask, no, SPF 30 does not