Blood Gifts Read Online Free PDF Page A

still didn't know
Luke's last name or phone number. "God," she said to herself.
"Slut." She curled up under a blanket on the couch to watch TV.
     
     

Chapter 9
     
    Luke knocked on Karina's door sometime after
dark. She could see him through the peephole. She had showered and
dressed, and put on some makeup to counteract the deathly pallor
she now had. She glanced down at her jeans and white lightweight
short-sleeved sweater to make sure she looked okay, then she opened
the door.
    Luke stood there in jeans and a gray T-shirt
again. He'd realized after seeing the blond vampire that he had
dressed himself all in black like one of the Runic clan. They were
cruel and not human friendly. He was trying now not to be like
them.
    "Can I come in?" Luke asked her cautiously.
"I won't be violent, I promise." Then he added, "I'm so sorry,"
quietly.
    Karina opened the door wider and waved him
in. The minute he got inside the door, she said, "Last name and
phone number, please."
    Luke looked startled, but relieved. He
laughed a little bit. "Uh, last name's Caldwell, and number..." he
took the pad of paper and pen she held out and wrote on it as he
smiled at her.
    He handed the paper back to her and said,
"And what's your last name? I'm kidding. I read it on your mailbox
downstairs. Sorry." He looked sheepish. "Hulsin."
    She smiled. She wrote on a different piece of
paper and gave it to him.
    "Ah, your phone number. Thank you," he said,
and folded it and put it in his pocket.
    She led him by the hand to the couch. She sat
and motioned for him to sit too.
    "So," she said, "now that we are all caught
up on preliminaries..." she looked at a loss for words.
    "You're a telekinetic," he said quietly.
    She looked surprised. "And you're a vampire,"
she said.
    "Yes," he said. "I'm so sorry."
    "You have got to stop saying that,"
she almost laughed. Then she looked a little more sober as she
said, "Apparently, I'm into that." Then she said, "So, you noticed
the room?"
    "The room?" he asked, confused.
    Then she looked confused. "My bedroom was all
torn apart like a tornado had been through it. I thought that's how
you knew about my powers."
    "Oh, I didn't even notice the room," he said.
Wow. "Though, truthfully it was probably both of us that tore it
up."
    She raised her eyebrows. "You're a
telekinetic too?"
    "Not anymore," he said. He looked down at his
hands as he tried to think of a way to explain it. He was so not
used to this. He never bothered to explain himself to anyone.
"Blood transference," he said finally. "When I drank your blood I
absorbed your powers for a few hours."
    She looked very surprised. "Wow," she said.
"Wow."
    " That part amazes you?" he asked,
laughing. "How are you totally okay with my being a vampire?"
    "Oh," she said, "that. Well, I spent years
learning to accept the fact that I had psychic abilities.
Apparently, when I opened my mind to that, it opened my mind to
other things too. Vampirism doesn't seem so farfetched anymore."
She fiddled with the edge of her sweater and continued. "I hide my
ability from everyone I know. I know what it's like to have a
paranormal secret, I guess."
    "And now here we are," he said.
    "Here we are." She looked back up at him.
"Were you in my bedroom the first night we met?"
    He looked embarrassed. "Yes, I was," he
admitted. "I, uh, was trying to make you my verae."
    "Verae?" she asked.
    "It's like a blood donor. I have the power to
mesmerize people so they don't remember my visit, and so they don't
wake up, but you did both. I crave human blood every once in a
while, but I don't kill people. A verae is just a person I drink
from occasionally."
    "Wow," she said. "So, my psychic power makes
me immune to you?"
    "Apparently."
    "But, I mean, not completely," she said,
suddenly flustered. "I mean, I keep feeling a haze or something
when I'm around you. Like I'm in a cloud."
    "I feel it too," he said.
    "Wow."
    He laughed.
    "Where do we go from here?" Karina asked.
    He took her hands and entwined