Beautiful Monster-The Exchange Read Online Free

their conversation if he wanted. But he probably wouldn’t.
Alexei was easily bored.
    “Wouldn’t you have been scared of me then? If you knew
the truth?”
    She nodded slowly. “Probably. But I know you love me
enough to keep me safe. I don’t think you would’ve hurt me, would you?”
    His response was immediate. “No! Never.”
    “We only have two days left. How will we spend them?”
Carly said, changing the subject. Though she was smiling, it was without humor.
    “We’re going to find a way to stay together, and we’ll
use our last days to figure out how.”
    “But you’ll have to go to ground. You’ll have to sleep.
There’s not enough time. Besides, I don’t think it’s possible. I have to leave
the earth plane and…” She let her words trail off.
    “And, you have a soul and I don’t,” he finished for her.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    “Do you think he saw me?” Carly asked Lev.
    “Who?”
    “Your brother’s friend. The guy you…well, the man you
just attacked.”
    Lev was embarrassed but tried to push the feeling away.
He wiped at his face again to be sure he’d gotten all of the blood. He doubted
Tony had seen Carly, though he couldn’t know for sure.
    “And what if he did? He’d only think you a living,
breathing human being, or perhaps a creature of the night like Alexei and I,”
Lev said. “I have a feeling Alexei’s able to see you because of his powerful
senses. He’s stronger than I am. Remember when I told you about Alexei’s
turning?”
    Carly nodded, seemingly satisfied, but there was a still
fear in her eyes. Bringing up Alexei’s turning had been a bad idea. What an
idiot he was, though Lev couldn’t help but recall the story Alexei had told
him. It had happened during the Bolshevik uprising in their native Russia. The
creature, Boris, was one of Lenin’s closest friends and allies, a power-hungry,
older man—everything his brother abhorred. Boris, however, had taken a shine to
the handsome young Alexei.
    It happened aboard a train filled with men bound for the
Tsar’s Winter Palace. Boris had crept up on Alexei in the early morning hours
while he was asleep in his bunk. Alexei’s first thought, as he’d related it to
Lev, was that the large, grotesque man was going to rape him. “He had a strange
look in his eye,” Alexei had said. “Like a ravenous lion eyeing a lamb.”
    Readying himself for the attack, Alexei had fingered a
handmade shiv he’d hidden under the thin mattress. Unfortunately, he hadn’t
time to grasp the weapon before Boris was on him. It would have made no
difference, Lev and Alexei knew now. It would have been like trying to kill a
gorilla with a toothpick.
    Apparently, Boris was foul but unusually powerful.
Alexei had told him some of the beast’s power had been transferred to him
during his turning. He’d felt it growing inside him, like a living thing, in
the days and months following the attack. A creature of the night could never
be as strong as the one who’d turned him. That was just how it was—a fact,
plain and simple, one Boris had been sure his newly made monster knew.
    Months later Alexei snuck off, and the first thing he
did was pay Lev a visit.
    At the time, Lev had been working as an apprentice in a
leather shop. He’d left their parent’s home and found a modest apartment.
Somehow he’d avoided factory work, the most common job in Russia at the time,
which thrilled him because the hours weren’t as grueling. It allowed him time
to pursue his passion—writing. In the evenings, Lev would spend hours working
on his poetry and short stories by candlelight. Sometimes he’d write until the
candle guttered out and would awaken in the morning with his head on his desk,
fingers stained black with ink.
    Lev didn’t have many friends, and he liked it that way.
He was social but only with a few of his fellow workers, and although he would
have loved it, he didn’t have a special lady in his life just yet. He was only
twenty-two.