Read Online Forbidden Days (The Firsts) by C.L. Quinn - Free Book Online Page A

covered porch where she’d enjoyed her breakfast that morning.
    He glanced back at her.  “Park, stay back.  You don’t want to see this.”
    “What is it, Bas?  Is it someone you know?  Did they kill another vampire?  What happened?”
    “Just go back in.  I need to deal with  this.”
    Park couldn’t help herself, she started wandering forward, and she saw the brilliant blonde hair barely hidden now by Bas.  Oh, it couldn’t be…
    She shoved her way past him and knelt beside the woman who was lying twisted beside Bas.  It was her.  Bernie lay face up, her eyes closed, her face untouched except for blood splattering her cheeks and liberally spotted through the crushed bleached hair.  The damage to her chest and abdomen, her clothes torn open, her skin ripped to shreds.  She wasn’t moving.  Oh, no, no, no…
    “Bernie!  Ah, what happened to her, Bas?!”
    “My enemy.  The one I told you about.  Shanks.  He killed her.  How do you know her, Park?”
    “She was my waitress this morning at the diner.  Why would he kill my waitress?”
    “I don’t know.  I would have thought he would have killed or taken…”  He trailed off. 
    Park finished it for him.  “Me.  He should have taken me.”
    “This doesn’t make any sense.  Why would he kill a completely unconnected woman?”
    “That’s what I was going to tell you before this happened.  When I was at the diner, some guy there creeped me out enough to leave.  I could read him, sort of, and knew there was something wrong with him.  He scared the hell out of me.”
    “That might have saved your life.  It was a blood-bonded.  Shanks couldn’t be out in the day.  He must have had a blood-bond follow you.  I still don’t get why he killed your waitress.”
    “It’s my fault.  We…sort of hit it off.  We were laughing and talking and he noticed.  He picked her because I liked her.  It’s my fault.”
    Suddenly Bernie twitched, her eyelids fluttered.
    “She’s not dead!” Park yelled.  “Bas, she’s still alive!  We have to call the emergency squad.  Do you have your cell on you?”
    “Park, they won’t be able to do anything.  The damage is too extensive.”
    Park just sat there looking at him.  What?  But she was still alive…
    “You can, can’t you, Bas?  You can do something.”
    “I’m sorry, Park.  I can’t save her.  He tore the hell out of her.  Her wounds are mortal.  He made sure of that.”
    “Then fix it!  This isn’t your fault, but you brought this here.  She’s an innocent, Bas.  You have to save her.”
    “There’s only one way.  And I don’t think you want me to do it.  It will keep her alive but she will have to give up her life.”
    Park was silent.  Her eyes met his.  “You mean changing her.  Infecting her with the virus.”
    “That’s the only thing at this point.  And she would have to want it.”
    “She would.  Bas, she had so much life in her.  I know she wouldn’t want to die.”  Park felt the moisture on her cheeks.  She lifted pooling eyes to his again.  “She can’t end this way. Bas, she has such an amazing laugh.”
    “But you don’t know her, Park.  You don’t know if she would want this.”
    “I do.  I know she would want to.  Bas.”  She put her hand on his, connected with him like they were able to do.  Touched him deeply.  “I know she would.  I was able to feel her like I do you.”
    He sat there for several minutes.  Then several minutes more.  He looked at the young woman lying shredded and bleeding out on the aged wood floor.  He looked at Park, who was asking the impossible from him.  Changing someone implied so much responsibility and it wasn’t ever taken lightly.  It was irreversible, and without this girl accepting the life she would be forced into, he didn’t want to do it.  People died, that was just the way the world worked.  He should let her go to her natural death.  Only there was nothing natural about