Eternal Darkness, Blood King Read Online Free PDF Page B

suspicious of my “great genes,” I made the decision to move back east to Extreme City New York.
     
    Jason didn’t like that at all, but that’s another story.
     
    Immortality is not easy.
     
    I’ve encountered the occasional curious soul who, for some reason or another, had figured out what I am, and a few of them have had the courage to approach me and ask for immortality.
     
    I try to remember how it felt before I knew my fate and right after I did. Before turning, I was reckless, a rebel, a thief, and an assassin; but was also mortal and every breath I took was precious. Immortality changed all that. The moment you realize that everything you know and everyone you love will cease to be is the moment you start to truly understand the reality of an eternal life.
     
    Lucy was a smart woman, and I think that by then, she knew my secret. I mean, how much longer do you think a being like me can keep the secret of his true self while living with a mortal?
     
    However, she was deliciously discreet with me and elegantly disregarded any questions she might have had about my nocturnal activities. In the beginning, I could tell my escapades worried her; but after some time, they became irrelevant to us. What mattered was that we were always there for each other; anything beyond that was inconsequential.
     
    In our friendship, I had always been alone; and I knew it hurt her to see me like that. My loneliness annoyed her, and she couldn’t understand it; but that’s the reality of immortality. The eternal existence of an immortal is at the core of the relationships he pursues, the companions he keeps; and when they are gone, we immortals truly grieve those whom we have chosen as our friends and/or lovers. Sometimes the grief lasts for years, decades even; and for some, getting close to anyone again is almost an impossibility.
     
    We were made in pairs, says the legend. That’s if you believe in legends . . .
     
    I completely understood Lucy’s need to have a companion she could relate to. It bothered me that it wasn’t me, but I also acknowledged that she deserved a man of her time.
     
    It is a matter of trust when you decide to make yourself vulnerable and let someone into your heart. It is a matter of faith when you believe that the other person will treasure and protect that trust.
     
    If you had asked me back then about trust, I would have told you that trust was meant to be broken, and faith a matter of perspective, but that’s just me.
     
    Lucy chose to make herself vulnerable to someone she was predestined to want—no, crave would be the right word. Lucy was a woman, but in some ways, she thought like a man. Men are visual, women are emotional. At least that’s what science says. It is not rare for men to have pictures, photos, and posters of the subject of his attention all over the place. Lucy was like that, always posting pictures of male models in her room walls—something about the power of positive thinking or some nonsense like that. And then Stephen, who was exactly what she craved physically, showed up in her life.
     
    As though following a bad script, they got together, two attractive young people in the city of plastic beauty. There was a lot of intense lust, a lot of fun. And then life followed. Before she met him, we used to spend much of our time together, but I was no fool. I knew very well I couldn’t offer her anything more than immortality as a vampire. I also knew then, as I know now, that Lucy was not a killer. Life as a vampire would be a living hell for someone like her.
     
    Like I said before, I was suspicious of Stephen for personal reasons, but also because I knew his type quite well: we were very much the same.
     
    Maybe this knowledge made me feel a dark combination of joy and anger that someone like him had finally ended up with someone like her. The only two reasons why I didn’t intervene were that I respected her and thought, and still think, that she needed to