Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

wine, brandy or rum. The powerful fumes mingled with the peculiar one of dry rot. As I limped onwards with Ruby, it was like strolling through a city of the dead, but instead of bones and skulls, there were barrels and casks. ‘Are you trying to get me ran-tan?’
    ‘No, not that.’
    That’s when I saw what the smell was. The blood and fear, which made me thirst to consume the world.
    Who it was.
    Grace - my first love and sweet torturer for the last three years. My tempter and betrayer. Destroyer of my heart.
    Grace was strung in chains, her feet dangling helplessly above the ground, like a frog stretched out for dissection. Her back was arched against the barrels. She was gagged and when she saw us, she started up with these odd little squawking noises. She’d been stripped down to her corset; the stiff whalebone bulged her dugs out, like apples.
    I suddenly remembered the many nights I’d wasted alone, tossing off over the glimpse of ankle, which Grace had flashed me with a coy smile, as she’d climb into her carriage. Now her pale body - this weak flesh - which was laid out like it was in a butcher’s window, repulsed me.
    Ruby was watching me intently, as she nudged me closer. ‘My gift, darling Light, do you wish to unlace it?’
    I wasn’t shaking now. There were no more doubts or qualms. Nothing holding back the predator inside. There was just this tiny sliver, which watched with horror, at how right this felt.
    So this is how it went down: I derigged the drab down to bare skin and then I grinned because you know what? Grace was chicken-breasted under that corset - another First Lifer lie.
    Strange, all Grace’s thin body did was remind me how much I’d relished Ruby’s curves, tipping the velvet, until I saw nothing but red. I still smelled of Ruby; she was on my lips. This blonde beauty had made me weak. But now I was strong.
    When Ruby propelled me closer, there was safety in her touch because she was united with me in the kill.
    ‘Blood is our birthright,’ Ruby’s voice was low; it swallowed the darkness, until the vaults echoed with it. ‘It’s the natural order. We would never have existed on this fair earth, if it was not. We would not have these,’ as Ruby’s two thin canines extended, Grace squirmed frantically, ‘or our venom, which paralyzes and stops their weak hearts, as if they were clocks. We are so perfectly designed for their blood, as they are so perfectly designed for us. Blood Life is not hunger. It’s fulfilment. Freedom.’ Ruby’s hands caressed around me, naughty as before, to those places that had never been touched before my death and election. ‘Dearest prince,’ she breathed, ‘free yourself.’
    I edged the gag out of Grace’s mouth.
    Grace gasped, panting and then stared between me and Ruby, whose hands were still wandering wherever they fancied.
    I knew what Grace was thinking: how could some nobody, like me, have done this to her? Her little plaything turned round to bite her?
    When I saw the tears glistening in Grace’s peepers, it was like being booted in the gut. The death throes of my First Life. Then it was over.
    ‘Thomas, please--’
    ‘My name is Light.’ The fangs shot from my teeth; I sank them into the milky white of Grace’s neck. It was pure bloody instinct.
    Grace screamed, but I was lost by then, engulfed in the blood.
    Grace shuddered to paralysis, as I drained her. I was bursting with it – Ruby’s gift of new life. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced or imagined. I wanted everything the world could bleeding well throw at me.
    When at last I fell back from Grace’s still body, I was laughing with excitement, shock, mania… I draped my arms around Ruby’s neck. ‘My thanks for your most perfect gift. It was…’ I laughed again.
    My nut was ready to explode – boom – with the rush and roar of the blood and the beat of my own heart, powerful in my chest.
    Ruby glanced at Grace, whose eyelids were twitching feebly. ‘It’s