Blood Born by Linda Howard

they required of her was exhausting, even with her at her full strength; if they weakened her by feeding from her, she wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace. They were on some kind of schedule, Nevada thought, one that she was now pushing to the limit. They wanted results, they wanted that spell broken, and they wanted it soon.
    If Nevada could have arranged it, she wouldn’t have had contact with any of them other than Sorin, not that he was an angel himself. Far from it, in fact. He came to her room every day—or rather, every night—to assess her progress, and he wasn’t above using threats against her family to push her even harder. Sometimes, though, he tried to charm her with a smile—and, gawd, what a smile!—or a kind word, a reminder that he wasn’t like the others, that he liked her and wanted what was best.
    But Sorin
was
different from the others, even though she couldn’t explain why. He was frightening, but he didn’t frighten
her
, even when he was threatening her. He was a vampire like the others, but he didn’t give her the heebie-jeebies. She actually looked forward to seeing him. Yeah, it was sick, but she still felt that way. At least he didn’t treat her as if she meant nothing, the way the other vamps did.
    She wasn’t delusional, though; she never let herself think that Sorin would ever help her, ever put her above the vampires’ interests. He was what he was, and if she sometimes saw flashes of the man he’d been long ago, the
human
he’d been, that was something she couldn’t let tempt her into doing something stupid.
    The fact was, she was getting close to being able to break the spell. Her power and knowledge had beensteadily growing, but a huge shift had occurred about a year ago. Some of those large books written in that weird unknown language had been in her way and she’d been dragging them to the side when one of them had fallen open. She’d glanced at the page—and abruptly her entire body felt electrified, her hair standing on end from the shock.
She could read the book
. The language hadn’t suddenly been transformed into English, it was still the same odd blend of swirls and angles that didn’t look like any alphabet she’d ever seen before, but she could read it.
    Hastily she dragged some of the other books to her, flipped them open. Some of them she could read, some of them were about halfway legible, and one of the really old books was still gibberish to her.
    And suddenly she’d understood. The books in English were like primers, teaching her basic stuff, getting her ready for the next step. The books she could read now were … high school. The ones she halfway understood were the college courses, and the lone indecipherable one was for her master’s degree—or doctorate, depending on how tough it was. When she could read it, then she’d know she was ready for the big leagues.
    A year down the road, she still couldn’t read that one last book, but a word here and there was making sense. Close … she was so close. The book was beginning to open to her. The vamps had no idea how far she had come, the powers she had practiced and pushed and expanded. They might keep her body imprisoned in this room, but thanks to the weapons they themselves had brought her—the books—she had just recently learned how to set herself free.
    She could “see” beyond this room she was never allowed to leave. She had to be careful when she did it, though; she wasn’t certain what went on with herbody while she was mentally traveling, whether she looked as if she were asleep, if she was merely sitting with her eyes open, or if she was jerking and drooling. She hoped it wasn’t the jerk and drool, but who knew?
    The hideous monster who always delivered her food had just left. She had some time before Sorin could be expected for his nightly visit to check on her and push her for a progress report. He pretty much had to believe what she told him, because really they had no way of