Read Moonlight for Free Online Page B

thigh.
    “Yes,” she said again. “You please me very well.”
    He couldn’t move, couldn’t take his gaze from her face, her
eyes. She was beautiful, but her touch was as cold as death, and in the depths
of her eyes, he saw the endless torment of hell.
    “Have those puny mortals sent me a message?” she asked.
    Navarre nodded.
    “Will you tell it to me?”
    “They ask that you will bless their fields, that their women
and cattle will be fertile, that their crops will grow, that their enemies will
be defeated.”
    “Always, it is the same.”
    She bent down, her eyes glowing, and he felt her tongue, hot
and moist, skim over the wildly beating pulse in his throat.
    “What of you?” she asked. “Is there nothing you desire?”
    Through a fog of fear, he remembered his promise to Ahijah. “I
ask that you bless Ahijah with sons and wealth.”
    “Nothing for yourself?”
    He was trembling now. “Only that my death might be quick and
merciful.”
    “I am not going to kill you, my Navarre.”
    “No?” He felt a faint stirring of hope in his breast, a
fluttering as faint as the wings of a fledgling chick.
    “No. I’ve killed all the others, but after a thousand years,
I grow weary of death.”
    “You’re going to let me go, then?” That first faint ray of
hope brightened within him, as radiant as Katlaina’s smile. He was going to
live. He would see Katlaina again.
    The goddess looked down at him, a trace of pity in her eyes.
“Yes, Navarre,” she murmured. “I’m going to give you a new life, one you never
dreamed of.”
    Relief washed through him, warm and sweet, like honey kissed
by the sun.
    “I’m not going to die, Katlaina,” he murmured, and he felt
the sting of tears in his eyes.
    “Oh, yes.” The goddess caressed his cheek. “You must die,
but for a moment only, my handsome one, and then you will be reborn into life
eternal.”
    Only then did he realize how quickly hope could be crushed. “I
don’t understand.”
    “You will.” Her voice grew deep, husky, ominous. There was a
sound, like the rushing of many tiny wings, and the candles went out, leaving
them in darkness.
    He was truly afraid now. The darkness seemed to grow
thicker, heavier, yet even in that thick blackness, he could see her face, her
eyes…the eyes that had haunted his dreams. Red eyes, filled with an insatiable
hunger and an unholy lust.
    “No!” He screamed the word even as he willed his body to
move, to run before it was too late. But her hand rested heavy on his chest.
Just her hand, holding him down as if he had no more strength than a newborn
colt, and he could only lay there, the stone beneath him as cold as death.
    She bent over him, her eyes glowing. He gasped when he felt
her teeth at his throat. His heartbeat roared like thunder in his ears. Her
teeth pierced his flesh, and he felt the warmth of his blood trickle down his
neck. He recoiled in horror when her tongue lapped it up, even as her touch
stole his breath, his life.
    Helpless to move, Navarre felt the weight of eternity
pressing him down, the loneliness of hell, the emptiness of death. And then,
gradually, warmth crept back into him, and with it a sense of well-being, of
strength, of life.
    He opened his eyes to darkness, and yet he could see
clearly.
    The goddess, Shaylyn, sat on the end of the altar. Her
cheeks were no longer pale, but the color of ripe peaches; her lips were as red
as…blood. She regarded him through eyes that no longer glowed red, but were
again a deep, endless black.
    “Welcome,” she said. “Welcome to the world of the undead.”
    Navarre sat up, muscles flexing. “What happened?”
    “I have given you eternal life, my brave Navarre. You need
fear death no longer. You will stay as you are now forever. You will not age.
You will never be sick. You will have the strength of a hundred men. If you are
cut, you will heal.”
    “What nonsense is this?” Navarre demanded.
    “I assure you it is not nonsense.” She stood up