Read Online Of Blood and Passion by Pamela Palmer - Free Book Online

am not that man any longer. I had hoped you knew that.”
    She wished she could see his expression. “You’re keeping secrets from me.”
    “Only because I must. For your own safety as well as mine.”
    For a long time, she didn’t reply. But finally, she sighed. “I trust you. At least I trust you enough. Your actions will be the proof, won’t they? Don’t betray me, Vampire, and I’ll trust you completely again.”
    “It will be done. Calm yourself, tesoro .”
    “That’s not going to happen.” Even if Arturo was completely loyal to her, she had plenty to be worried about. Cristoff had put a price on her head that had most of the creatures in Vamp City hunting for her. “Calm isn’t a possibility. We’re lucky I haven’t started to hyperventilate yet.”
    He was silent for a couple of moments before he said carefully, “A fear feeder will taste your nervousness.”
    “If you’re trying to settle me down, that’s not the way to go about it,” she muttered, swiping at a low-hanging branch to keep it from hitting her face. A nervous Gonzaga guard might become quickly suspect and hauled before Cristoff.
    “It was not my intent to make you more nervous, cara , merely to remind you to be calm.”
    “Right. I’ll put that on my to-do list.”
    “You are stronger than you believe, Quinn. There is nothing you need fear. Your magic will come to your call when you need it, if you will simply believe it is so.”
    “You think it’s that easy? Just believe?”
    “I know it is. Your own doubts are all that stand in your way.”
    She grunted. “Until very recently, I didn’t even believe in magic.”
    “Then believe in yourself, cara ,” Arturo said simply. “And believe in me.”
    “I’m trying, Vampire. I’m trying.”
    As they rode though the dark, they passed a house, windows lit by firelight. She wondered who lived there, whether they were friend or foe. The only thing she was fairly certain of was that they were not human. Humans, even the immortal Slavas, were hunted by too many in this place to ever feel safe on their own out in the open like this.
    As they rode through another dark copse, the scent of diesel teased her nose. “Do you smell that?” she asked her companion.
    “A truck. Yes.”
    He’d once told her that smells occasionally carried into Vamp City from the real world. But never sound.
    They continued on in silence but for the clop of the horses’ hooves in the dirt, leaving the trees behind for the shells of dark structures—the doppelgangers of buildings built before the Civil War and left to rot. The five hundred or so vampires who’d originally moved into Vamp City had not needed the housing the human residents of D.C. had, especially when most preferred the simplicity of living in their masters’ castles. Throughout Vamp City, there were nine vampire masters, each the head of his own kovena, or vampire family. Gonzaga was just one kovena, though arguably the most powerful.
    They’d seen no sign of other vampires, nor heard any. Only that one scream as they’d first set out. Vamp City was quiet tonight, its inhabitants undoubtedly sobered by the threat of their impending demise.
    Ahead, something large loomed in the dark, a huge building of some sort. It had an odd shape, almost like an egg halfway tilting out of its cup.
    “Where are we?” she asked.
    “The corner of Independence and New Jersey.”
    “New Jersey…” Quinn’s eyes widened with shock as realization slammed into her. “That’s the U.S. Capitol building.”
    “Yes. Quite unlike its modern day counterpart, no?”
    “What happened to it?”
    “Age. Neglect. It was never occupied by the vampires. The dome slid off its base some forty years ago.”
    Damn. Just when she thought she’d seen it all—the White House sitting half-collapsed in swamp water, the Washington Monument still only a third built. Now this.
    As her mount continued to follow Arturo’s, she tried to make out the features of that