Chapter 273 - Last Rites part 4

As I said before, he was a startlingly handsome young man, with bright green eyes and light beard, full lips and perfectly molded features. He waited for me to join him with a patient, curious smile, dressed in a black tunic and scapula, a crucifix hanging from his neck upon a chain. I knew by his attire that he was a Benedictine, a "black monk", and I realized also that I was suddenly, most unexpectedly, drawn to this mortal.

My attraction to him was so fiery that I hesitated for a moment before I went to join him at his table. After years in the company of my fellow immortals in the Court of the Night's Watch, venturing out among the living only rarely, I had almost forgotten how alluring mortal men and women can be—their ripe, luscious odor, their vitality, the poignant fragility of their existence.

I wanted him, as I had not wanted a mortal man in over a thousand years, and I think I decided, the very moment that I saw him, that I had to have him, and that I was going to make a blood drinker of him.

I cautioned myself to remain aloof to this mortal's charms. To become involved with a mortal now would needlessly complicate my mission, but I was fooling myself. I could no more resist this handsome mortal than I could the pull of gravity.