This Time Next Year Read Online Free PDF Page A

almost loathing. If possible, he stilled further. “It sounds so cliché now, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
    “It’s not cliché, it’s admirable.”
    With a shrug, he said, “Maybe. But all that changed with Willem’s arrival.”
    Moira shivered. Kiernan hugged her closer.
    “He challenged Marguerite for me. She accepted. In order to keep me alive should the worst happen, I had to drink from him; his blood would preserve me, and with her death, bind me to him.” He paused. “The worst happened.”
    From his tone, she realized Willem had killed Marguerite, just like the bastard had killed her parents.
    “Willem took me into his coven. Forced me to feed on humans. He had a brothel set up, humans willing to let us feed on them, use them however we wanted. Marguerite had ruined me, he’d said, weakened me, but he could teach me the true purpose of my change, teach me to use my gifts. I didn’t know what he meant until….”
    She shuddered. “Until he butchered my parents. Right.”
    “After that night, I….” He stopped again.
    His muscles tensed; the unwillingness to continue his story turning him to stone. She stroked his hard chest with her fingertips and warmed at the ripple that went through him.
    He placed his hand over hers. “I kept watch over you and ensured neither he nor any other vampire came near you.”
    A pang tore at Moira’s heart. Brief memories of hisses and screams flashed across her mind. The Dufresnes had claimed bobcats were fighting over territory in the woods behind the house, but now…. “You fought them off.”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?” Her heart pounded in her ears. He lay still but if she couldn’t keep her heart rate down, would he strike? Would he control his urges?
    Inhaling, he squeezed her hand. “Because I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you.”
    Her heart almost stopped. Her mind screamed to run, that this guy was nuts, but she believed him. For the first time in a long time, she believed someone with everything she had. Tears trickled onto her lover’s chest. Her lover. Her guardian.
    “Humans…their blood….” He shook his head. “It’s difficult to explain. It’s almost musical to us. That song is the allure, and some vampires keep killing just to hear the music. It’s the one joy they cling to.”
    “Does mine do that?”
    With a smile, Kiernan kissed her hand. “Yours is the most beautiful melody I’ve ever heard.”
    Warmth flooded her. “So what about Willem? Did he come after me?”
    “A few times. I kept him at bay but could never deliver a killing blow. When he did stop coming around, I refused to trust my good fortune.”
    She stiffened. “What did you do?”
    “I hadn’t seen him in months, but the moment I believed you safe, he’d strike, and I’d lose you for certain. So I chose instead to hunt him down. End all of it. But I had to survive. I had to keep protecting you.”
    A thousand questions assaulted her, all variations of why bother , but she wouldn’t interrupt his story. Sounded like he needed to say it as much as she needed to hear it.
    “Even after I broke from the coven and started watching over you, his blood tried to force me back into the fold. My body burned with the strain of ignoring his calls. After months of ignoring him, I finally answered and found him at his favorite club.”
    “Is it bad that I’m imagining some bordello or something?”
    Kiernan shook his head, a weak smile playing on his lips. The first real bit of emotion he’d shown since starting his story. “It wouldn’t be far from the truth.”
    Sick fuck . “Keep talking,” she said, though she wondered if she really wanted to know the rest.
    The smile faded. “He was waiting for me that night, sitting alone at one of his shadowed tables, watching the other vampires toy with their human companions. When I sat down, he didn’t look at me, just stared past me at the mass of writhing bodies. His progeny. All as cruel and twisted as