Read Online Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) by A D Koboah - Free Book Online Page A

the
morning.”
    The next thing he
remembered was sitting in the farmhouse, where he stayed for the
remainder of that night, surrounded by corpses. Auria hadn’t erased
his memory of them, perhaps because she liked the idea of him
worshipping her from afar, and he had held on to it, revisiting
what he remembered everyday during the years that
passed.
    Onyx and Auria passed that
way again years later when Emory was sixteen. He was on his way
home when he saw them walking out of a tavern, half-carrying an
extremely inebriated older man, soon to be one of their
victims.
    Blinded by his adoration
for Auria, he rushed toward them with no thought for his safety.
Auria rounded on him, ready to attack, until she searched his mind
and saw his memories of her. Although only sixteen, he was a tall,
strapping young man and already possessed the good looks she had
preserved for an eternity. Looking him over, she reached over and
grabbed his crotch, seemingly pleased with what she discovered
there.
    “ Well, you seem determined
to die young. Come. You can carry him.”
    She placed the drunk in
his arms, although she could have carried him much easier than
Emory. He followed them without a second thought.
    They kept him with them
for the next ten years. He watched over them during the day and did
whatever they asked of him at night, desperate to be allowed to
stay with Auria. He had not known she could change him and make him
like them until she surprised him one night. That had been decades
ago.
    “ I will always love her,
no matter what she does to me.” His face became sad as he showed me
more images. One was of Auria’s expression as she gazed at me the
night before.
    He showed me countless other images of
Auria in different scenarios with other men and women, most of them
sexual. The one constant in all those images was Emory watching
those couplings, his sorrow and anguish palpable. It was not the
physical act that elicited this emotion, because he enjoyed
watching her being loved by others; it was the little moments of
affection she showed toward them occasionally that fired up his
rage and jealousy.
    “ I love her regardless of
her mistakes,” he continued. “She has made many mistakes with you.
She should not have made you straight away, or killed your wife.
Another approach at times is best in situations like
this.”
    Like the approach he had chosen, I
thought to myself, the pretence of friendship whilst he slowly
tried to bend me toward what he wanted of me.
    “ Yes, that approach. I see
that the thought of being with another man is abhorrent to you. But
when you have lived for as long as I have, the pursuit of pleasure
crosses any boundary you may have set in your mortal life. Flesh is
flesh and there are many ways to gain pleasure from it if you are
not afraid to experiment. And beauty, even beauty such as yours,
can only enchant a person for so long. So do not worry, she will
tire of trying to win your affection.”
    You hope, I thought again, looking directly at
him.
    His eyes hardened, almost
imperceptibly, but he smiled calmly even though his rage leapt out
at me. He averted his gaze and continued in his light-hearted
manner.
    “ Your beauty may have
caught her attention. But she turned you into one of us purely on a
whim. So do not think you can ever take my place. Besides, making
you was a big mistake, and I do not say this out of jealousy. You
are young, not merely from my advanced years on this Earth. You are
young in mind even among men of your years. You have an innocent,
pure spirit and she should have known being turned into a vampire
would haunt you.” He smiled wryly. “Or perhaps she did and it is
the reason why she chose to do it. But you cannot be made into a
vampire without it changing you. How long before you become exactly
like us? Years? Decades?”
    He directed a level stare at me and,
as always, his gaze was a little too intimate. I vowed I would
never be like them.
    He laughed softly and got