A Night with a Vampire Read Online Free PDF

to move a tree. And not just any tree, a giant sequoia.
    Marius ignored her protestations and approached the couple closest to them. The man pulled up from the woman’s neck and looked up at him, blood covering the bottom half of his face. The woman was dead, her neck half-gone. Xana froze. The vampire wasn’t just drinking her blood, he was eating her flesh.
    Revulsion ripped through Xana, turning her stomach. She took an immediate step back. The vampire followed her movement, his eyes glowing an odd shade of reddish-amber. Marius thrust something into the man’s heart. Surprise filled the vampire’s face seconds before he exploded into an obscure puff of ash.
    Xana sagged with relief, but it was short-lived. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom and as she looked around her, she realized the room was full of vampires and, by the sickly sweet odor, blood . They didn’t seem to just be taking drinks. They were actually feasting . She faltered, falling back against the wall. She couldn’t stay here. Terrified, she looked at Marius and started backing toward the door.
    In two strides he was on her.
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    Marius took Xana’s stakes out of his inside pocket and thrust them into her hand. Her eyes widened with surprise. “Don’t let them near you,” he said then moved into the heart of the room.
    He saw Lewis, his old friend from back when he’d first come to San Francisco. Lewis was old-world French and an aristocrat. But more than that, he was a gentleman. A man of sophistication. The animal Marius saw before him tearing into a human like a wild dog was not his friend. His friend had been stolen by the virus.
    Fury tightened Marius’s grip on the stake as he plunged it into Lewis—doing what he had to do, doing what Lewis would want him to do and what he’d want Lewis to do to him if their roles were reversed. He put Lewis down like the rabid animal he was.
    This virus the Alliance had infected the vampires with was spreading. He had to put an end to it and eradicate those responsible now, or soon there might not be any sane vampires left. Which wouldn’t be good for any of them. As quickly as he could, he moved through the room, staking one rabid vamp after another.
    Until they became aware of what he was doing.
    The vampires stood, rising off the corpses and moving toward him. The darkened room glowed with candlelight bouncing off the reddish-amber sheen of their eyes.
    Behind him, Xana gasped. As if frozen, she’d been standing against the wall watching with shocked eyes, but not moving. She moved now, as if someone flipped a switch inside her, and started doing what she did best—killing vampires. Though he doubted she’d ever been faced with so many at one time.
    He fought with the speed and strength far superior to many of the vamps in the room, who were at least a century younger than him, and by the time he and Xana were done, there was nothing left but the mangled bodies of the victims.
    Sickened by the scene before him and by what he’d had to do to his followers, his vampires from his city, he walked slowly around the room, making sure they were all gone. Xana stood by the far wall, breathing heavily, her hand shaking.
    â€œWhat are we going to do now?” she asked.
    â€œThe human bodies will have to be destroyed. No one can ever know who they were or what had happened to them here.”
    â€œIt’s just so…”
    He placed a hand on her arm. “We have to make sure this never happens again. We have to stop them.”
    Looking somewhat shell-shocked, she looked up at him with wet luminous eyes, her mouth opening as if to form a question, but in the end, she just nodded.
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    Without saying a word, Xana followed Marius out of the chamber and down the stairs to the room below, where people danced and drank and laughed and had no idea of the horror going on above them, or how close they’d come to becoming meat for the