Lord of the Vampires Read Online Free PDF

son, Mihnea, given me by my beloved dead Ana. He alone shares my shrewdness and ambition; were I to choose one person on earth I should least wish to sacrifice, it would be he.
    Yet I was a keen and ambitious child, eager to learn from my father and fulfill my duties as his heir, and he betrayed me without hesitation to the Turks.
    So it was I answered, In return for immortality, I offer up the soul of my eldest son.
    Not enough, replied He sternly, to my astonishment. Not enough; for immortality lasts forever, but my pleasure at receiving Mihneas soul is temporary. We must have a continuing bargain. The soul of the eldest son of each generation. And you shall bear the responsibility for delivering it to me.
    I paused only a heartbeat at the thought of such a responsibilitys cost. Very well. Each generation, I shall deliver into your power the eldest son. But at what moment shall I become immortal?
    The change shall begin this night, once the sun has set, and be accomplished by the dawn. One warning: In the morning you must closet yourself away to rest undisturbed. You will no longer be a man, but an altogether different creature.
    How shall I be changed?
    The child smiled, but there was no contempt, no condescension, in His eyes. That depends upon your own heart and mind. For each one it is different. You shall become more powerful, but there will be conditions upon that power. There are always conditions. I leave you to discover them yourself.
    Conditions? I savoured this new information, and experienced a sudden revelation which restored a shred of my former confidence that I should be able to control this entity, and thus my ultimate fate. And have you no conditions upon your own power?
    Another laugh, sweet and tinkling, then silence. The child regarded me with abrupt solemnity. There remains only one thing to be done to complete our exchange.
    As he spoke, the flesh upon my arms and nape prickled. This was the moment I had long awaited, the moment which had sustained me during these last bitter days of knowing my earthly kingdom and my life would soon be forfeit: the moment I stepped over the threshold into immortality.
    A kiss, the Dark One said. Only a kiss. And He stepped from the hearth and rose on tiptoe, arms at His sides, the pink petals of His lips pursed in anticipation.
    I moved towards Him, at last understanding as I sank down why He had appeared as a child: that I should have to bow to Him to accept His gift. The thought rankled, as I have bowed to no one but my father and Matthias, and then only with reluctance. It also filled me with foreboding, for it underscored the fact that the Dark Lord was no longer mine to control, and summon when I wished; I was now under His control.
    But I could not accept death, and so I bowed and kissed Him. And at the moment my lips touched that infinitely tender and immortal flesh, I felt a surge of power, of exhilaration, move from Him into me.
    I stared into His eyes and saw them deepen from sky-blue to indigo, the colour of night. Dark and shining they were, and magnificent, eyes that made a man want to do nothing but stare into them for eternity. I could not resist. As I looked deep into those eyes, I saw in them the gaze of the Beloved, the gaze of the dead. The gaze of the only female I had permitted myself to love, my dead Ana; the seductive, beautiful, treacherous gaze of Radu; the shrewd, calculating gaze of my father, Vlad, and behind it, infinite Darkness
    So deep did I fall into that Darkness that when I came to myself some momentsor was it hours?later, I opened my eyes to find myself kneeling before the hearth. The child had vanished, and the fire had gone out, leaving only ash and glowing embers. Yet I felt no chill; my limbs, my head, my chest, were atingle with strange sensation. Not the tingle of limbs gone numb, but rather an odd sense of internal movement, as though my body had been emptied of its contents, then refilled with humming bees. I felt strangely