Robert Read Online Free PDF

pit of her stomach.
    Licking her lips, she gazed back at his black eyes while he offered her his wrist.
    Drink or you will die.
    Sophie glanced around, but the noise had come from nowhere but her head. The rolling of her stomach forced her to place a hand over her mouth.
    “You have to drink, Sophie,” he said.
    With no other choice before her, Sophie reached out.
    Keeping an eye on him, she took his wrist and began to take the sustenance she needed after so long without it.
    His scent surrounded her. She could feel his blood inside her body, as hers was within him.
    Sophie took as much as she could stomach, then moved away from him. After all, she was still human. Once the need had been fed, the blood tasted like blood.
    But she could feel the change inside. The power and strength began to return to her. The last three years had been a struggle. With each passing month, Sophie knew she was getting weaker. Unless she ate a little food every few hours she would pass out and not remember anything of the days before. Katie had helped her to solve the mystery of her sudden tiredness. She was here not only for Katie, but for herself, too.
    It would seem that part of the bond with a vampire required a constant supply of his blood. As the years went by, unless she ate constantly, her body would start to drain of energy and she would be bed-bound for weeks at a time. She didn’t know why she hadn’t gone to Robert—to her mate—sooner. For months she had thought something must be wrong with the blood bond. Never before had she heard of bonded couples who struggled with fatigue or illness as she did.
    But other couples remained together and fed each other. The only thing missing in her case was the blood.
    Robert pressed a damp cloth to her brow.
    “You’re ill.”
    Sophie couldn’t argue with him and she didn’t have the strength to stop him from caring about her.
    Already she could feel the welcoming warmth of his blood inside her body.
    “I feel better.”
    He nodded.
    She looked at him. Really looked at him.
    He wasn’t handsome, but he was sexy. Confidence and power emanated from him. Just by looking at his facial features, you would know he was someone of extreme importance. He had a tan, letting her know that he wasn’t restricted to the night time just because he was a vampire. His black eyes shone with knowledge. His eyes were the scariest thing about him—they followed her wherever she went. The eyes of a predator. He was strong, his body muscular. Even if he hadn’t been a vampire, he would still have been a strong man. As always, though, it came down to his eyes.
    No living person had black eyes.
    “Why am I so weak?” she asked.
    He stopped and gazed at her.
    Sophie had no choice. She needed all the answers.
    “You don’t know?”
    She shook her head. “I thought I was supposed to benefit from this bond.” She sounded petulant, even to herself.
    “None of your friends are dead, are they?”
    “Well, no—”
    “Be thankful, Sophie. Most friends take advantage of the blood bond. It seems you and Katie are very quiet.”
    He wrung the cloth out and wiped the blood away from her neck. Reaching up, she pressed her fingers against the bite marks.
    “They are healed, but you will have the marks for some time.”
    Sophie nodded. There wasn’t a lot she could do about it. The wounds would just have to be covered up. She might be a blood-bonded mate but she didn’t have to advertise the fact.
    Vampires might officially be considered citizens in this country, but there were still groups of humans trying to find new ways of killing them. Of wiping them out. People like her, who gave themselves to vampires, were considered fresh meat—the bottom of the food chain.
    And though they might not like it, these groups understood the bond between vampire and human. They knew that taking the human and torturing her would bring the vampire out into the open. They knew that by killing the blood-bonded mate they could