Читать книгу Night's Master - Amanda Ashley - Страница 11

Raphael prowled the dark streets of Oak Hollow, his hunger and his frustration growing with every passing minute as he quietly cursed a longing he could not satisfy or ignore. Going out with Kathy McKenna had been as big a mistake as he had known it would be, but he had been helpless to resist. He didn’t know what it was about her that drew him. Certainly he had dated other women who were as pretty and as charming, yet none had fired his imagination or his hunger the way she had. Like some exotic siren of myth and legend, she had captured his soul with her smile, his heart with her laughter, and now he couldn’t think of anything else. She was in his thoughts by night and his dreams by day. The urge to carry her off to his lair and bed her, to kiss every inch of her sweet flesh, to savor the sweetness of her life’s essence, burned through him like a fever with no cure.

Kathy.

Since seeing her on Thursday night, it had taken all the willpower he possessed to stay away from her. In all his existence, he had thought himself in love only twice. He had killed the first woman; the second one had been the girl he had told Kathy about. He didn’t intend to make the same mistake a third time.

But it hadn’t kept him from dissolving into mist and entering the bookstore Friday night. Her scent had surrounded him, tantalizing him even in his intangible form as he hovered in the air near her desk. Drifting there, weightless, shapeless, he had recalled the softness of her skin, the warmth of her smile. He had tortured himself with her nearness until he couldn’t stand it any longer, and then he had fled the building.

Resuming his own form, he had preyed upon the first man he had seen. Filled with impotent rage, he had taken the man’s blood quickly, his hands cruel as he held his prey in place. He had been sorely tempted to drink the man dry. He was a Vampire, after all. Why not loose the beast that lurked within and revel in the power that was his? To what purpose did he cling to his humanity? For the approval of a woman who would never be his? He had released his pent-up frustration in a wild cry that had sent an alley cat scurrying for cover. Overcome with guilt and shame, he had released the helpless mortal, wiped the memory of what had happened from the man’s mind, and sent him on his way. Hands tightly clenched, Rafe had watched the man stagger down the street until he was swallowed up in the shadows of the night.

Now, as he stalked the dark streets, Rafe couldn’t help wondering what Kathy would think if she could see him at this moment. He didn’t need a mirror to know how he looked now, with his fangs extended and his eyes red and glowing with the lust for blood. He had seen his own image mirrored in his brother’s face often enough.

Muttering an oath, he vowed it was a side of him that Kathy would never see. To his regret, the only way to guarantee that she never saw him at his worst was to stay away from her.

The thought of never seeing her again was far more painful than he had expected.

Rafe grunted softly. He was eighty-five years old; he had been a Vampire for seventy-two of those years. He should be used to pain in all its forms by now.