My Blood To Rise Read Online Free PDF

go through that,” she replied.
    “They love it,” he told her. “They beg for it. There was a time in the past that humans would hold competitions for the opportunity. Many people died trying to win the right to serve our kind.”
    “You’re making this up,” Dara shot back.
    “You should have seen it,” Andrei told her. “There are still those who compete for the honor, though the rules have changed.”
    “Why do they do that?” she asked.
    “Why give themselves to us?” he asked. “Because your stories and films portray us as evil, people fear and hate our kind, but it wasn’t always that way. A thousand years ago, humans worshiped us as gods. We lived in the open. People knew about us, and they wanted nothing more than to serve us. We wouldn’t have taken people into our service against their will. Humans begged us to feed from them, for the simple pleasure of mixing their mortal blood with ours. They saw it as a way to achieve a kind of immortality.”
    “And what about now?” she asked. “What happens when someone finds out about you?”
    “The world has changed.” He shook his head. “We are very careful now. If word got out that vampires were roaming the streets, it would become difficult for us.”
    “What about vampire hunters?” she asked. “Are there any?.”
    He smiled. “Yes, there are slayers, but not as many as you might think. Most of the humans who find out about us wind up as companions. Once a person has been bitten, we don’t let them slip through our fingers.”
    Dara shuddered. “That doesn’t sound so nice.”
    “Being bitten is like a drug,” he told her. “You might be scared out of your wits the first time, but after a while, that fear fades away and you want it again. Pretty soon, it becomes normal, and then you don’t want to live without it. Once a person has been bitten, their benefactor brings them to Sanctuary, and that’s where they stay.”
    “Sanctuary?”
    “It is a place we have made our home.”
    “And what of the people you take there to be your slaves?” she asked. “Do you put them in dungeons—”
    “Nothing like that,” he said. “You’ll understand how things are when we get there. When we say they are slaves, it does not mean we enslaved them. They are slaves to their own desires and passions. You’ll see how much they covet their positions.”
    “They all submit to being bit?” Before she was bitten, she didn’t know what it meant; all she knew was how much she wanted Andrei. What she felt the morning after was not an experience she ever wanted again.
    He pulled back, and his startling blue eyes caught her in their power. “Is it really so bad? You might have been surprised when I bit you, but you can’t tell me it was painful. I’ve asked other companions, and they tell me the sensation is really rather pleasant.”
    “Pleasant! Ha!” she scoffed. “That’s the last thing it is. It feels like dying. It feels like you’re being washed out to sea and never coming back.”
    He gazed straight into the bottom of her soul. “That sounds a little like getting drunk. Some people pay a lot of money to get that sensation from drugs, or jumping out of airplanes. They get a thrill out of it. You weren’t expecting it, so you got scared. You thought I planned to drain you dry and leave you dead on the floor. But I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. You’re perfectly safe with me. I’ve drunk from thousands of people, and I’ve never killed a single one.”
    “If you’ve drunk from thousands of people,” she asked, “what’s so special about me? Why did you choose me to be your consort?”
    “I’ve had many companions in my life,” he told her. “But I never felt this way about any of them. I never wanted to join my life to any of them for all eternity. You are different.”
    “How?” she asked.
    He put his head on one side without breaking eye contact with her. “There is something about you, a power, an attraction. It’s raw