Crimson Debt: Book 1 in the Born to Darkness series Read Online Free PDF

a
deep, throaty laugh that made the short hairs on the back of my
neck stand up. “She’s my new pet. You may visit her if you
like.”
    “She…I…where are you?” I asked, barely able
to get the words out.
    “Sheila will give you the address.” Celeste
already sounded bored. Another voice took over and gave me
directions to a community in the New Tampa area where none of the
houses started below the two million mark. It was a long haul from
our apartment in Beach Park—the poor part of South Tampa—but I made
it in record time.
    When I got there I found Taylor sitting on a
couch beside the petite Celeste. My friend didn’t look particularly
happy but she didn’t look as miserable as she would soon become
either. I found out later that this was a pattern for Celeste—she
latched onto a human she thought had “potential” and turned them to
serve as her companion. For a few months—sometimes even a few
years—everything was all right. But the moment her new prodigy
disappointed or displeased her in any way, the gloves were off.
    “Taylor, what are you doing here?” I asked,
thinking how unlike herself she looked. Her normally tan skin was
as pale as paper and her eyes had a strange glitter to them I had
never seen before.
    “I live here now.” Her full bottom lip
quivered but she didn’t quite dare to let herself cry.
    “What do you mean you live here? You live
with me—we share an apartment. We’re roommates, remember?”
    Celeste smirked at me. “Taylor is no longer
your concern. She belongs to me now.”
    “She doesn’t belong to anybody,” I said,
fixing the vamp with a glare. “She’s a person—not some doll you saw
in a toy store and decided to buy.”
    “Listen to me, little human.” Celeste leaned
forward, focusing her eyes on mine. “Taylor is mine. You
will accept this and stop hounding me all over town. It was amusing
at first but now it is both embarrassing and tedious. Do you
understand?”
    I realized she was trying to glamour me. “No,
I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you think you can
just take someone away from their normal life and own them. That’s
bullshit.”
    Celeste’s dark eyes widened and then
narrowed. “Ah, I see you are one of those rare humans who are
immune to our glamour. How very tiresome.” She sighed. “Very well,
we will do this the hard way. Leave now and stop harassing me or I
will have you killed.”
    “You can’t do that,” I said, feeling like I’d
suddenly been ejected from my safe life as a grad student and
dropped into the middle of a mafia movie. Taylor’s new mistress was
literally making me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
    Celeste gave me a very unpleasant smile that
didn’t reach her eyes. “Watch me, little human—I am not one to
suffer fools gladly. Taylor is one of us now. You must accept this
and realize there is nothing you can do to change it.”
    “You mean she’s a vampire ?” Despite
Taylor’s altered appearance I couldn’t believe it. But my best
friend was nodding, her lower lip trembling again.
    “It…it’s true, Addison. I’m a vampire now.
That’s why I have to stay here, with Celeste. She’s going to teach
me all about it. And besides, I need a light-tight place to sleep
and you know we don’t have anything like that at the
apartment.”
    “But…” I shook my head, at a loss for words.
“But what am I going to tell your mom and dad? They’re frantic,
Taylor.”
    Blood tears welled up in my best friend’s
eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to keep them from falling.
“Tell them…tell them I love them and I don’t…don’t know when I can
see them again.”
    “Taylor—” I started.
    “Enough,” Celeste interrupted me. “This
interview is over. Go back to your human life and pursuits and
forget about Taylor. She is mine now and I will hear no more about
it.”
    I wanted to protest further but Taylor gave
me a frantic look and a tiny shake of her head. Flanking me on
either side