Read Bloodline for Free Online

growing. Seriously, sometimes I hear things…that aren’t…audible.”
    â€œLike…thoughts?” he asked.
    I nodded. Then I blinked. “How do you know that?”
    â€œBecause you and I are the same, Lilith. We’re not…exactly human.” He came to me, sat beside me on the sofa and took both my hands in his.
    â€œAnd there’s more about your new nature that you don’t yet know. Bigger things than you’ve had a chance to figure out yet. It’s going to be hard to understand, but I want you to hear me out and just try to keep an open mind.”
    â€œAll right.”
    He nodded, licked his lips and held my hands more tightly. “We don’t—well, we don’t age, Lilith.”
    I frowned as that statement sank into my brain and I tried to understand what it meant. A simple phrase. We don’t age. And yet it couldn’t mean what it seemed, on the surface, to mean.
    â€œWe only die if we bleed out, or if we’re burned. Our bodies are extremely flammable. Open flame is dangerous to us. The sun, too, will roast us to death.”
    â€œThe sun? ” I sat up straighter, pulling my hands free of his and letting the blanket fall from my shoulders. “That’s ludicrous.”
    â€œAny wounds we may suffer heal during the daytime. That’s when we sleep. It’s not by choice, mind you. We just lose consciousness when the sun comes up. We have to sleep where we’re protected from it.”
    I blew air through my teeth, relieved as I realized he was joking. It wasn’t very funny, but maybe he just had a twisted sense of humor. I shook my head and smiled. “Next you’ll tell me we subsist on human bloo—” I broke off there, as my eyes shot to the empty stein on the table. And I knew. I knew. I gagged and clapped my palm over my mouth.
    â€œDon’t,” he said. “You won’t throw it up. There’s some part of your mind that’s repulsed by the notion, Lilith, but it’s the part you let go of when your mortal life ended, the night you slit your wrists and let yourself bleed nearly to death before ingesting the blood of one of us to replenish you. To transform you.”
    â€œThat’s insane. Where would I get the…the blood of one of you?”
    â€œSome sort of lab—not from a living being, or you wouldn’t have had to cut your own wrists or go on the run on your own. Of course, I’m only guessing. How you gotthis way, I can’t be sure. But I know what you are, Lilith. You, the woman you are now, are not sickened at the thought of drinking blood. You need it. You crave it. You relish it.
    â€œYou’re a vampire, Lilith. And so am I.”
    A vampire. It was insane. It couldn’t be real.
    But even as he said it, he pulled something from one of his pockets and held it out to me. It was a small round mirror, with a little wire hanger on it. He must have gotten it when he’d been in the kitchen getting me my…beverage.
    I didn’t move as he offered it to me.
    â€œGo ahead. You’re not going to believe me until you see proof. So take a look, Lilith. You cast no reflection. And while you’re at it, feel your incisors. Or just take a look at mine.”
    He bared his teeth, and I sucked in a sharp breath and jerked backward. But even as I did, my tongue was exploring my own teeth and finding the same thing I’d seen in him. My eyeteeth were slightly elongated, pointed—and razor sharp. I met his eyes and had the feeling he knew what I had just discovered, and then I stood and reached for the mirror with a trembling hand.
    I held it away from me and looked into it to be sure it reflected other things. The throw pillows, the dancing flames, the painting of Lilith above the hearth. It did.
    Swallowing hard, I tipped the mirror slowly toward my face. And then I blinked, because I wasn’t there. The mirror reflected the wall behind