Albert Manlii has walked this earth for more than two thousand years, but survival on his own was never easy. Now he leads a faction of highly organized vampires who carefully guard the secret of their existence. Unlike the old days, potential recruits are carefully selected and presented with an offer.<br><br>Phillip Brewer has weeks to live -- if he lets his disease run its course. He doesn’t want to die, but given a choice, will his desire to live outweigh his concerns about the vampires’ ethics?<br><br>When the new recruit’s missteps are cause for concern, can Albert control the fallout, or will Phillip’s life once again be torn apart?

The Recruit

Neil winced at the thought. Albert had explained the eating and drinking issue to him. It wasn’t anything that would kill them, but their digestive and renal systems were no longer set up to process food and water the way it had when they were human. Their systems were optimized for blood, and blood alone. Anything else they consumed was quickly liquefied and rushed through their digestive track for a ridiculously hasty exit.


Eating and drinking were highly inconvenient, and he took their word for it that the end result was “unpleasant,” to use Albert’s term, or “vile,” to use Marshall’s.


“I am sochuffed to get to see this.” Neil gave Albert’s hand a squeeze. In the big scheme of things, knowing he would miss the opening of this movie had been a small concern. Even so, he’d been looking forward to this next episode in the popular series for months, and it had been one more thing to depress him when he’d felt so horrible and thought he was going to die.


Chapter 17