Divine Blood (Vampire Love Story #6) Read Online Free PDF

this time didn’t feel right.
All my life, I had listened to my feelings—they had kept me alive
this long.
    Those who knew me well
trusted me when I told them that the Triat wanted me to stay alive.
There was no way I should still be alive after all I had been
through. And yet, here I stayed. Lived. Thrived.
    But...I was also a man of my word. I’d
told Brock Houston that I’d meet him at his newly built mansion on
the island of Attica. I remembered the day Atticai had named that
island. I’d thought the name wasn’t too inspirational, as it was
already the name of a prison, but the name had become what it was
and Atticai was just trying to find a name that was close to his
own name. He also had a wicked sense of humor, under the serious
demeanor, but the name of the island, I felt, was driven by his
need for a legacy. He had no children, and the island was all he
had to carry his name.
    Now Atticai was long gone, but that is
a tale for another time. The island was now governed by Atticai’s
successor, a superrich and highly charismatic Mani named Brock
Houston. I didn’t know him well. I’d actually gone out of my way
not to know him well. As far as I was concerned, he was an
outsider.
    Like I said many times, I was a man of
instinct and my instinct told me on day one not to like this guy.
There were many reasons to dislike him, other than that he came
from money.
    Attica’s people followed
Brock Houston as passionately as my followers followed me. That
scared me. His power. I had earned my power. I had come from
nothing, and built my honor, blood drop by blood drop. When someone
had power that was wrapped up behind their money, that never sat
right with me. Respect had to be earned on the battlefield. Not granted. Brock’s
power was pure granted, a given, because of his wealth, which both
repulsed me and alarmed me.
    However, I had never felt pressure to
help someone. It had always been because it came from the goodness
of my heart. I felt very manipulated by Brock. Whenever someone
blatantly manipulated me, it made me feel highly
uncomfortable.
    I felt this situation had gone out of
control. The only thing to do was honor my commitment and move on
with my life. Hopefully, my son and I would both come out
unscathed. This situation seemed to be coming from a power that
wasn’t my own. This was entirely my decision to let my son go into
the lion’s den. I just prayed that I wouldn’t regret it.
    An old saying came to mind
from many years gone by, and it was a scrap of wisdom from my
once-human life that had been eclipsed by my immortality: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends.
    When the time came, I’d be there with
my son, by his side, and with the old battle cries and the power of
the Triat behind us, guiding us, leading us, empowering us. I was
going to honor that vow to serve, to protect, and to sacrifice, or
my word meant nothing.
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    I was still lying on my back in my bed
next to my wife as restless as I think I ever have been in my life,
my brain synapses repeatedly firing with ideas and worries and
hopes and agonizing dread. I knew I needed some sleep because I
wanted to be sharp tomorrow, just in case Brock tried to pull a
fast one. At this point in my life, I needed to be prepared for
anything.
    I thought about the
essentials that made me who I was, who I am and who I will
be. Josiah, past, present and
future. The scenes of my life rolled out
like movie trailers, with the future misty and uncertain, the
present clear and a little stale, and the past seeming like someone
else’s life of glory, honor, and sacrifice.
    I stared at the ceiling, willing my
mind to focus on something for the greater good, a philosophy that
had taken me from the near-gutter of selfish humanity to become the
sacrificial leader of a united race of immortals.
    My mind was all over the place. I sure
wasn’t a kid anymore. I never went into the tank over