Read Beloved Vampire for Free Online Page A

under her cheek, Farida wore a sheer white gown that bared her shoulder and showed the lines of her body. Her dark hair, spread across the pillow and down her back, was twined with ribbons. Imagining clumsy male hands weaving those ribbons brought the first tears to Jessica’s eyes. Farida had liked ribbons, and he’d wanted her to have everything she liked. Stones and dried flowers from places she’d never go, ribbons in her hair. A gown she would have chosen when she lay down with him, as eager for his touch as he was for hers.
    More rose petals had been scattered over the translucent white fabric, the flowers as tender a pink as her relaxed, almost smiling mouth. According to the stories, she’d been tortured to death. Burned, bones broken, stabbed, stoned, her face cut with pieces of glass. But there wasn’t a mark on her. Her thick dark lashes fanned smooth, olive-complexioned cheeks. Slim, elegant fingers pressed together in folded prayer or repose.
    Those muttering voices in Jess’s subconscious, trying to process what was in this chamber with a rational mind, were bothering her.
    She shoved them away. She didn’t need to be rational anymore. That had no place here.
    Her gaze moved to a small pillar table next to the bed—for she couldn’t think of this as a coffin now—and alighted on a crystal vase, with one snow-white orchid in it.
    Some of the legends she’d uncovered had said that Lord Mason was so enraged in his grief he’d sold his soul to darkness and become a desert demon in truth, whirling across the sands of the Sahara and unleashing vengeance against her family. After which, he dedicated his damned eternal life to watching over her, hiding her grave and body from those who would harm her.
    Another fanciful tale said that the week after she was killed, a fierce dust storm had buried her father’s camp, no trace of it ever to be found. Sheikh Asim’s brothers in other tribes renewed the blood oath to seek revenge, the ones Prince Haytham advised to stand down. She wondered if they ever heeded him.
    Everything she saw here was beautiful, moving, a miracle. But she had to admit it was also discomfiting. She’d come prepared to see dry bones, maybe the unexpected—and highly unlikely—possibility of a dried flower husk, clutched in skeletal hands. A dusty tomb for the dead, a fitting place for her to fade into its tranquility, become part of the silence.
    But unlike Jess’s failing body, there was something vibrant and strong here, a love so eternal it may have taken a dark turn in its determination to endure. This was not just guilt and grief beyond comprehension, but dormant power that would wake and consume the whole world, if it would bring her back to him. What would a man become, if he didn’t have the strength to let go, and possessed the power to hold on throughout all eternity?
    That sense of uneasiness returned, a sly voice. You know what he is.
    Shut. Up.
    Sinking to her knees in the petals, she laid her temple against the sarcophagus. Along the walls Lord Mason had left his wife more gifts. Books, fantastic jewels, scarves. Horses carved of onyx. Clothing . . . a beautiful beaded wedding dress Farida would not have had when she made her own vows under the stars. All in all, there appeared to be several hundred gifts. One for every year she’d been dead.
    Jess forced herself not to start counting. The way to open the tomb was an engineering trick, not magic. Perhaps Lord Mason had descendants. Perhaps he’d returned to England, eventually married, and his heirs came once a year . . .
    Fate could not be so cruel as to bring her back full circle. Not after months of searching and hoping.
    If vampires existed, so could other supernatural beings, right? Why not a desert djinn? But she’d been a researcher too long to ignore the possibility, in the laughing, mocking face of everything she now knew about the world.
    The words of the memoir she’d treasured, memorized, as well as the