THIRST (The Elite Book 3) by Hanleigh Bradley (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

room and lower him onto the sofa that I was just sitting in. He’s covered in blood, but I can’t see if it’s his own.

“SYBIL!” I shout for my housekeeper and she comes running.

Her eyes are wide when she sees Hestin, and she’s already pulling up her sleeve when I say, “He needs blood.”

She offers him her wrist without hesitation and he grabs it, his fingers tight on her white skin, before he bites into her vein. I leave the room, going to close the front door, seeing as how I can’t question him while he’s drinking.

He’s more alert when I return, and like the polite man that he is, he actually thanks Sybil. I feel almost like a proud father that I don’t have to chastise him for playing with his food.

“It’s an honour, Mr Hestin,” Sybil says before lowering her sleeve back over the quickly healing wound. Her gaze moves to me. “Is there anything else you need?

I shake my head, but then as an afterthought I ask, “Can you check on Farah?”

“Of course, sir,” she says before leaving the room.

“Tell me what happened, Hestin.”

CHAPTER TEN

Farah

I wake with a start. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Everette was trying to kill me. My head is still a little fuzzy as I climb out of bed. There are clothes waiting for me on a chair, so I make quick work of dressing.

My stomach grumbles, but I’m not sure if it’s safe for me to leave the bedroom now. Everette never said, and I’m not sure I want to risk running into a couple of unfriendly vampires, just so I can go in search of food.

I jump slightly when I hear a gentle knock at the door, just as I’m pulling a jumper over my head. Nervously, I open the door to find Sybil smiling at me as if I haven’t spent most of the day hiding in Everette’s bedroom.

“You must be half starved!” She says as she takes my hand and practically pulls me from the room. She’s a lot stronger than she looks.

“Is it…” I begin awkwardly.

“Oh, the visitors from earlier have gone. You’ll be perfectly safe with me in the kitchen.”

“Where is Everette?” I ask as I follow her down the stairs.

“He’s dealing with a little problem in the living room. I’m sure you’ll see him soon enough.”

We pass the living room door and I’m tempted to go in, even though I know Everette is busy. After everything that Jessamine said this morning, I have about a million questions. And for once, I fully intend on getting answers.

There’s blood on the door handle. My eyes widen in horror and I nearly ask Sybil what problem Everette is dealing with. But I’m not stupid enough to think that she’d actually tell me. One thing I’ve learned about Sybil is that she’s incredibly loyal to Everette.

“Oh dear! I’ll have to get that cleaned up,” Sybil says, tutting under her breath. “Trust Hestin to make a mess.”

“Hestin?” I ask as we continue down the corridor towards the kitchen.

“One of Everette’s closest colleagues. He was rather indisposed when he arrived a few minutes ago.”

“Can vampires be indisposed?”

“He certainly appeared to be when he as good as collapsed in the doorway. Quite a fright, I’ll tell you. It’s a good job you were upstairs. You would have been quite terrified.”

I’m not sure if I should be offended. Personally, I think I’ve handled all of this with a buck load of courage, but I don’t tell Sybil that. She seems to notice my annoyance though, because she gives me a pat on the shoulder as she circles around the kitchen counter to prepare my meal.

“Not that you aren’t doing miraculously well, dear. It’s just he really did look dreadful.” She doesn’t look at me as she plates up the stew that she has boiling on the cooker. “I remember when I first realised that my father wasn’t completely balmy.”

“You thought your dad was mad?”

“Wouldn’t you? He kept telling me his employer was a vampire.”

I try to imagine how I’d have reacted if one of my parents had told me the same. But honestly, it’s just too insane.

“He’d said it so often, I thought it was a euphemism or something. I thought he was just telling me that Everette was an evil so and so who worked him to the bone. So, when he wanted to retire, and he told me the truth, I absolutely thought he’d lost his trolley.”

She puts a plate of food in front of me at the breakfast bar.

“Little did I know, he had been telling me the truth all along.”

Everette

“Tell me what happened, Hestin.”

“Don’t want to give a man a moment to catch his breath?” Hestin grumbles.

“You don’t breathe, you idiot.”

“Fine,” he says, sitting upright. “I was asking around like you said to. Turns out not everyone likes me snooping around. I went to the Red Lion pub to meet with an associate. Seeing as how it seems to get a lot of vampire clientele, I didn’t think nothing of it. I’ve met him there before.”

“Not a friendly bunch tonight though. Knew almost straight away something wasn’t right.” He frowns before leaning forward. “He told me that a group of rebels have been meeting in one of the upstairs rooms for weeks now. He as good as asked me to sign up.”

The Mother looks horrified. “The audacity.”

“Didn’t take too kindly to it when I refused. Here I was trying to wheedle him for information and he was trying to convert me to the cause.”

“Did you learn anything about them?” I ask.

“Not much. It all happened a bit too quickly. But I plan to go back. I want to search the upstairs