Read Online Son of Our Blood by Kathi S. Barton - Free Book Online Page A

might have left.
    “Said to tell you if you stay, he’ll
make it worth your while.”
    “No thanks.” When she tried to pay him
for damages, she was informed that the owner again took care of it. “Well,
thanks.”
    She was sitting in her beater of a truck
trying to start it when the passenger door swung open and Mac climbed in. She
thought about demanding that he get out, but knew it was a lost cause. Instead,
she finally got the engine to turn over and she pulled out of the lot.
    She didn’t care if he came or not. If he
really was a vampire, by the time they got to where she planned to stop for the
day, he’d be a crispy critter because she figured the sun was going to be up in
about an hour. Turning on the radio as loud as it would go, she pulled out into
traffic and drove on. This was going to be a really long trip.
    ~~~
    Zachariah rose with the setting sun. He
reached beyond the lower levels where he was and found the house to be mostly
empty. He stretched his muscles and got out of his coffin. Moving to the
bathroom, he took a long, hot shower and dressed. By the time he made it to the
upper levels he was nearly an hour past sunset.
    “Good evening, sir. There are several
messages for you. Most of them are your family. I dealt with the majority of
them, but there are…they are not happy with me.”
    Zachariah figured they weren’t happy
with him either. He moved to the chair and sat, taking the notes from his
houseman with him. He skimmed over them without really seeing them and then
laid them down in front of him and looked at Gregory. “What is it that they
aren’t happy with you about? Maybe I can fix it.” He didn’t think it mattered
one way or the other if he did or didn’t, but he would say anything to keep
Gregory loyal to him. “And for the record, I don’t really care for any of them
right now.”
    He snorted and took out a sheet of paper
from his coat. The man asked to sit and Zachariah nodded. “They wish for me to
get them donors. All of them. And one each. They are inviting so many guests to
this wedding I do not see how it would be possible. How would I even begin to
get each of the six hundred guests a donor? And where would I keep them? That
is the most…I must say, sir, I don’t understand the necessity of all this for a
human and a vampire.”
    Neither did Zachariah. He didn’t
understand a great many things his family did, but letting his sister marry a
human, a human who had no intentions of converting, was just stupid. The man
wasn’t immortal and could and would die at any time. He looked down at the list
he was to fix and noted that his mother had said he was to make Gregory listen
to her. He took that one, crumpled it up, and threw it toward the trash can.
    “Let me have your list and I’ll see if I
can get them to cut it in half. I’ll try for getting it all simply disposed of,
but I wouldn’t count on that.” He looked over the list. “Wedding cake? For one
human? That’ll have to go right away.”
    He was handed a pen by Gregory and he
spent the next ten minutes going over the list. Of the one hundred and ten
things on it, he marked off all but five. And those five he was still thinking
about. He handed it back to Gregory.
    “Make me a copy of this list and then
I’ll take it to them.” Zachariah stood up. “They think that because this is supposed
to be the marriage of the decade, everyone will want it to be a showy wedding.
I think she would be better off draining the human and then moving on.”
    Gregory snickered and then started on
another list he’d pulled from his other pocket. “This one, sire, is to be for
the vampire dedication you were to have in two weeks. It is also, I believe,
your loyalty dinner. Should we try to have some fresh donors for this?”
    Fuck, he forgot about that. It was a
yearly requirement that he hated. He had so few people who came, and those that
came only stayed long enough for them to say that they pledged themselves to
him