Read Online Within The Shadows by Julieanne Lynch - Free Book Online

body with his eyes flashing
red.
    I craved his
touch, and wanted his blood.
    Biting hard
into his wrist, the scent instantly burst inside my head. With no
further hesitation, I pulled his arm to me, and drank. The warm
blood gently slipped down my throat, its magnetism pulling me
closer to him. I felt every wave of ecstasy coursing through him.
Sensing his need for me, I pushed his hand away, the blood still
bursting inside me. I drew him down to me with force, and his mouth
explored my neck, kissing my throat, and gently gnawing on me. I
wanted him so much I thought I was going to explode.
    He bit down
hard, and it stung like hell, but soon enough, the pain was
removed, and replaced by something else. His thirst was insatiable,
at first; his desire, the driving force behind the bite. He slowed,
gently supping my blood, and abruptly coming to a halt before I
reached a climax.
    “ If we don’t stop, we’re going to do something we’ll both
regret. It’s not time.”
    I was
breathless. “Oh, my God, you can’t make me feel like that and then
stop!”
    “ It’s not that I don’t want to. Believe me, I do. We just
can’t. It would be wrong on so many levels,” he said, shaking his
head.
    “ So I shouldn’t take this as rejection?” I asked, feeling
foolish.
    “ No way, Giselle. When it does happen, it will be special,
not just, you know, two horned up teens going at it. I
promise.”
    I felt
humiliated. I was the one who had, more or less, instigated the
whole thing, and now it felt like the world’s biggest anti-climax
ever.
    Rejection sucks.
    “ So, what happens now? I prodded as I slipped my jeans on,
shame written across my face.
    “ Well, you indulged in your third feed from me, so I guess a
lot of things will happen now. I can almost bet the elders will be
planning your consecration in the next few days, or even hours, and
then we’ll be married.”
    That
certainly got my attention. “Married?” I choked on the
word.
    Laughing, he
pulled me close to him. “Not like that, but similar. It’s a lot
less formal, and a lot more fun than your usual mortal shindig.
It’ll be good. Wait and see, but first things first. I will go see
Afanas, and fill him in on the necessary things. The rest is our
secret.”
    He winked at
me. Grabbing me by the hand, he led me to the door. “I must make
myself presentable, and you might need to brush your hair,” he
mocked, twirling some of my hair between his fingers.
    I left his
room, and walked along silently, contemplating what almost happened
back there. For someone who had strong beliefs about abstaining
from sex, I gave losing my virginity a pretty good shot. My mother
had brainwashed me from a young age that good girls do not do that.
They wait until they are in a long-term and loving relationship, or
marriage, the latter being mandatory.
    Marriage? I
was not ready for sex, let alone becoming a wife.
     

Chapter
Seven

     
    THE HOT
WATER flowed over me as I tried hard to
wash away the past week. I wanted to get rid of any evidence of my
erotic encounter with Alex, and tried in vain to remove the dark
shadow from within the hollow of my chest. I failed at both. I
could still taste his blood, and feel him on my skin. The blackness
repelled the soap, and remained there, its core embedded in my
soul. A cluster of thoughts ran through my head, filling me with
more grief and confusion.
    “ What’s happening to me?” I whispered to myself.
    It was one
thing being brought into a world where everything was strange and
new to me, but being told that I had to commit myself to Alex was
another thing. I did not want to spend the rest of my life, or what
was left of it, married to a complete stranger. The Alex I knew was
no more, and, to be honest, I doubted I had ever known him. It had
all been a lie, and one with a specific motive.
    Yet
something happened every time I was around him. It was almost as
though I was being taken over by some unknown force. Every bit of
common