Read The Wages of Sin (Blood Brothers Vampire Series Book Two) for Free Online Page A

human.”
    “I don’t remember being human. In death you
forget.”
    Ah, the always disappointing Tyr. Just when she’d
begun to take interest, he’d let her down again.
    “Tell me a bedtime story,” she said, “about when you
were young.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “The first time you were in love.”
    Tyr gave a half-smirk. He looked up to one of the
corners of the room and sent for thousand-year-old memories. It
took a while for him to begin, but when he did, he did exactly as
he was told.

CHAPTER
EIGHT
     
    Tale of the Black Rose, Part I
    A Bedtime Story for Eva
     
    Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom called
England, there lived a vampire named Tyr. He was as innocent and
pure as a serial murderer could be, a quiet, religious man whose
life belonged to the church. Tyr didn’t know he was Tyr yet. He
still called himself Harold. He lived with his brother Loki, whose
current name was John, and his father Odin, who was still called
Jacob.
    Tyr, Loki, and Odin were lying to themselves, but
they were happy. Even in spite of their isolation.
    “They must never know what we are,” Odin said often.
“If they discover us they will kill us.”
    They passed from village to village, never staying
in one place for more than a month at a time. They had to feed once
a week, and usually they drained one woman each. As travelers were
not entirely common in most villages and the townspeople were often
well acquainted with one another, mass disappearances drew
suspicion. Though they occasionally became mildly acquainted with
the humans in various towns, they never divulged their secret. This
was the result of their common sense and nothing more.
    It was late one night in a magical land called
Yorkshire when Tyr first came upon a young girl named Eleanor. At
the time, he was living in the catacombs and only slipping into the
village one night a week to hunt with his Brothers. They’d fed
three nights prior, but Tyr told them he was restless. He wanted to
see the beautiful land of Yorkshire. To walk the streets in the
moonlight, to watch over the townspeople as they slept.
    Loki and Odin were uninterested. They stayed in the
catacombs and read books from the church library. They furthered
their education however they could. While Loki in particular worked
to build his perspective of the world as an observer, Tyr worked to
build an understanding of his place within it. Such is the
difference between education and experience, and there would come a
time for them when this difference would feel much more
significant.
    Eleanor was sixteen years old and the child of
serfs, so she had spent the day ploughing and weeding and
harvesting with her father and the eldest two of her four sisters.
The family had eaten supper at dusk and retired to bed shortly
after, knowing work would begin again at dawn.
    She awoke during the night and wandered outside
restlessly. A thin fog had rolled in and the moon was full, and an
ethereal glow emanated from the dew on the grass. She wasn’t sure
how much time she had before sunrise, but she felt the urge to walk
through town, to see the beauty of the village at rest.
    With similar ideas on how to spend the night, Tyr
and Eleanor had not wandered long before they came to face each
other on a dirt path near the woods.
    “Hello, sir,” said Eleanor. “Are you a soldier?”
    “No, madam. What makes you ask that?”
    “It was only a guess. I’ve not seen you before. I
thought perhaps you were a night watchman.”
    “I am not. I am a traveler. I’ve ventured to all the
corners of our great country and found few sights as beautiful as
Yorkshire on a foggy night.”
    “A traveler. What work do you do that permits you to
travel?”
    “I am a messenger for the church. What work do you
do?”
    “Nothing interesting. I work in the fields with my
family. I’m sure I don’t have stories such as yours.”
    “I have many stories that are short and amusing, but
I expect the one story you have