Final Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

streets, the art, the people.
    And of course, the greatest symbol of all for this city of lights and love …The Eiffel Tower.
    When s he took the elevator for her final view from the top of the tower, she traveled with a group of tourists on their first trip to Paris.  What a pleasure to get to see this special city through their eyes, always best dressed when it was lit up at night.  Afterward, she joined two of the young boys from the tourist group as they got into a fountain in a public park to dance in the water, and crawled out soaked and laughing twenty minutes later before the gendarmes came.
    She slept all day the next day , and woke refreshed, but hungry on her last night in Paris.  After living strictly on sugar for the past twenty-four hours, she was starving for some real food.
    So many favorite choices in this city!  How could she choose when it was her last dinner in Paris?  While she considered her choices, she wandered around the streets.  It was a warm Friday night, and the partiers were out, locals and tourists jamming the streets.
    I t struck her that there was only one place she wanted to be tonight.  
    Alisa ended up on la rue Moufftard , a pedestrian street filled with cafes, clubs, local artisans, and restaurants.  She wanted to be around young and vibrant people, drinking, laughing, searching for love or loving the one the one they were with.  Long years yet to live, such exciting moments ahead .  Now that she had accepted her situation, she found joy in watching others making their lives.
    After ordering a bottle of her favorite Pinot Noir, s he sat at a little café table for an hour, watching the people, and still hadn’t eaten much.   She needed to decide where to eat, the wine on an empty stomach going to her head.   She glanced up at the waiter who watched her closely.  Ah, he needed her table.  She nodded to him as she gathered her huge bag and positioned it on her shoulder.  Everything she carried with her on this journey was in that bag.  She’d realized she needed so little, that anything else she might need on the journey she could just buy it, and leave it behind for someone else who might be able to use it later.  But the bag was oversized and a little awkward.
    After leaving a nice tip, she stood too quickly and stumbled, her legs hesitating to do what she asked of them.  The bag slipped, she glanced down to reposition the strap as she stepped out past the café into the street, and was broadsided by someone passing by.
    She didn’t see who hit her, but whoever did was much bigger and heavier, and she went down hard.  Luckily, she landed on her bag and it absorbed most of the impact.
    Alisa hit the ground with enough force she lost her breath and saw stars for a moment, but all she wanted to do was laugh.  Clumsy and inelegant was her new normal.  She looked up to see someone reaching for her, and gratefully put her hands into a man’s larger ones.
    It wasn’t his fault, she ’d stumbled and hadn’t been looking where she was going, so she looked up at him to tell him so.  And couldn’t speak. 
    T he face above her was extraordinarily handsome with startling green eyes that took her breath away again.  He had been reaching down to her, she assumed to help her up, but he stopped moving and just stared at her as well.  She understood how he felt.  He stunned her, too. 
    Never in her life had she felt anything like this.  He was just so beautiful!  This man, this stranger, within seconds, it felt as if he captured her soul.  She wondered how she had lived all her life without seeing that face.
    She smiled, and curled her fingers around his.

 
     
     
     
    SIX
     
     
    Thank God it had gone well.  Xavier had detained Jacob and Starla for issues that arrived from the young cadre of vampires who had taken Starla against her will and changed her to vampire.  Xavier’s lieutenant had dealt with the group of young vampires and released them with dire