Free The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa Page B

you release from the mortal coil, and I promise that you will not spend eternity as one of them.” He nodded to a pale body, crumpled against a tire a few yards away. “I can give you that much peace, at least.”
    “Or?” I whispered. He sighed.
    “Or…I can make you one of us. I can drain you to the point of death, and give you my blood, so that when you die you will rise again…as an immortal. A vampire. It will be a different life, and perhaps not one that you would suffer through. Perhaps you would rather be dead with your soul intact than exist forever without one. But the choice, and the manner of your death, is up to you.”
    I lay there, trying to catch my breath, my mind reeling. I was dying. I was dying, and this stranger—this vampire —was offering me a way out.
    Die as a human, or become a bloodsucker. Either way, the choice was death, because the vampires were dead, they just had the audacity to keep living—walking corpses that preyed on humans to survive. I hated the vampires; everything about them—their city, their pets, their domination of the human race—I despised with my entire being. They had taken everything from me, everything that was important. I would never forgive them for what I had lost.
    And I’d been so close, so close to changing something. To maybe making a difference in this stupid, screwed-up world. I’d wanted to know what it was like not to live under vampire rule, not to be starving all the time, not having to shut everyone out because you were afraid they would die in front of you. Such a world had existed, once. If I could only make others realize that as well…but that choice was gone. My world would remain as it always was: dark, bloody and hopeless. The vampires would always rule, and I couldn’t change anything.
    But the other choice. The other choice…was to die for real.
    “You are running out of time, little human.”
    I wished I could’ve said I would rather die than become a bloodsucker. I wished I had the courage, the strength, to stick with my convictions. But in reality, when faced with death and the great unknown that came after, my survival instinct snatched wildly at whatever lifeline was offered. I didn’t want to die. Even if it meant becoming something I loathed, my nature was, first and always, to survive.
    The stranger, the vampire, still knelt beside me, waiting for my answer. I looked up into his dark eyes and made my decision.
    “I want…to live.”
    The stranger nodded. He didn’t ask if I was sure. He only moved closer and slid his hands under my body. “This will hurt,” he warned and lifted me into his arms.
    Though he was gentle, I gasped as pain shot through my broken body, biting down a scream as the vampire drew me to his chest. He lowered his head, close enough for me to see his cold pale skin, the dark circles beneath his eyes.
    “Be warned,” he said in a low voice, “even if I turn you now, there is still a chance for you to rise as a rabid. If that happens I will destroy you permanently. But I will not leave you,” he promised in an even softer voice. “I will stay with you until the transformation, whatever it may be, is complete.”
    I could only nod. Then the vampire’s lips parted, and I saw his fangs grow, lengthen, become long and sharp. It was nothing like the rabid’s teeth, jagged and uneven, like broken glass. The vampire’s fangs were surgical instruments, precise and dangerous, almost elegant. I was surprised. Even living so close to the bloodsuckers, I had not seen a vampire’s killing tools until now.
    My pulse throbbed, and I saw the vampire’s nostrils twitch, as if smelling the blood coursing through my veins, right below my skin. His eyes changed, growing even darker, the pupils expanding so they swallowed all of the white. Before I could be terrified, before I could change my mind, he lowered his head in one smooth, quick motion, and those long, bright fangs sank into my throat.
    I gasped,