Ravenous (Siren Publishing Classic) by Aubrey Brown Page A

shook his head. He had promised himself he would give her a choice, a choice she never had before.

Chapter Ten
     
    A day later Emma opened her eyes to see Gabriel sitting in the chair beside her bed. It must be nighttime, for the room was dark save for the burning candles.
    “Gabriel,” she whispered.
    “Emma, you had the whole household worried for you, are you all right?”
    “Aye, but how am I here?”
    “George and I brought you home. Do you not remember what happened the other evening?”
    “I do, however, how are we here if we were in London just last night?”
    And for the first time she sat up and felt her face. It was not swollen and her lips were not cut. She moved her body experimentally and felt no pain.
    “Gabriel, what has happened? Please tell me how we are here and how I am healed.”
    Gabriel had not thought she would notice she was all but healed, but ever his Emma, she was observant.
    “You do not want to know, sweet, just be happy you are here and with your family,” Gabriel soothed.
    “Gabriel, you know the truth of my life, please tell me how it is possible we are here, and I am healed. You say we are to be a family. There should be no secrets. You must know that I love you no matter what.”
    “I wonder if I were to tell you that you would still love me. Perhaps the truth of my life will send you running off into the dead of night never to return.”
    “What are you saying, Gabriel?”
    “I am not human, Emma. I am immortal, do you understand what that means?” he asked.
    “You are saying…” She stopped with a puzzled look upon her face.
    “I drink human blood to survive. I cannot die by human illness. I was born two hundred years ago,” he reaffirmed.
    She stared at him in sudden understanding. “You are a vampire.”
    He firmed his lips and grunted, “Aye.”
    Emma had read lore when she was a small child about the undead that walked the earth feasting on the blood of the living.
    “You survive on human blood?”
    He gave her a curt nod. His body stance spoke of tension waiting for her to come to a conclusion.
    “How had you come to this affliction, Gabriel?”
    “In the year of 1620 a woman of nobility took me to her bed. I was turning five and thirty, and my father was demanding that I marry. We were not titled, and he felt our extreme wealth would attract a daughter of a nobleman. So I went on a drunken rampage of spirits, and gambling. She came upon me in a moment of weakness, and I was angry that my father wanted me to marry a woman who was a stranger, so I took her to bed, and then I awoke in a pine box below the ground. I was hungry and desperate for blood. I was alone, so I fled to England from Ireland. A while later I joined her Queen’s army in war. I saved many a young man’s life, and the King rewarded me with this infernal title. The rest you know, Emma.”
    He fell silent, and Emma’s heart broke for him. He never asked for this, just as she never asked to be born to a baron, who would bargain her for a higher title and money. She grasped his hand, and he gaped at her.
    “Gabriel, you never asked for this, just as I never asked to be married to a man who wanted to beat me for his pleasure and then eventually kill me. I love you, Gabriel, no matter your trials, we will see to them together.”
    “You are not of this world, Emma. You cannot mean you still want me after I have told you I am a vampire, and that I feast on human blood.”
    “You saved me, Gabriel, and it sounds as if you need some saving as well. You say you were five and thirty when you became undead? You do not look a day over thirty.”
    “It is a side effect of the healing agents within my blood. I have looked thus since I was crossed.”
    Emma held dawning horror in her eyes. She would continue to age, and he would not. Furthermore, another thought came to her. She was healed by his blood, which meant she must have drunk from him. Funnily enough the idea was not at all repulsive. This was