Anomaly (Causal Enchantment) Read Online Free PDF

pledged her allegiance to me, I had in turn demanded she follow Sofie’s guidance as it related to this war.
    I hoped Sofie knew what she was doing.
    Sunrise couldn’t be more than twelve hours away.
    “Let’s get ready. It’ll take at least an hour to get to the city on foot.” Everyone mobilized.
    “ Wait …” Kait and Galen stepped forward, exchanging hard glances. “There’s a matter of a deal,” Galen said.
    “ Oh, for God’s sake! We don’t have time for that,” Mortimer objected harshly.
    “It takes seconds,” Galen insisted.
    “And what will they feed on? We don’t have enough to feed five fledgl—”
    Kait’s shrill screech drowned out Mortimer’s objections. “I’m not leaving here until I know Brian is safe!”
    Brian ?
    Sofie’s ey es flickered to Mage, who shrugged and said, “A deal’s a deal.”
    Sofie heaved a sigh. “Where are they?”
    “At an inn, in town. Ten miles away. We didn’t want to bring them near with the fledglings,” Kait explained, throwing a look of disdain my way, as if I were leprous.
    “ Bring them here and Mage will do it. But you and Galen are coming with us and we are leaving immediately after.”
    “And what? Leave them unguarded? No, ” Galen argued.
    “They will not be unguarded,” Sofie snapped. “But we cannot lose time waiting for their transformation. I need every able body.”
    “We’ll come after they’ve transformed.”
    “You will come immediately after and that is an order!”
    I didn’t hear the rest of the argument as Caden led me in the direction that Bishop and Fiona had disappeared.
    *
    “Nothing at all? Still ?” Caden yelled over the generator, its loud roar amplified by the long, narrow tunnel. Dark and dank, it smelled of cold earth and stale air. Far from comfortable.
    Caden ’s and Amelie’s intense gazes drilled into me. Waiting for my reaction. For my pupils to dilate, for the whites of my eyes to turn crimson, for the veins to throb.
    For the eyes of a ravenous vampire to appear.
    I shrugged, more concerned about what had happened to my friend and the delicate Veronique. The last time I saw them, upon awakening, there were smiles and an exchange of words and affectionate touches. Now the two sat hunched over their small coolers like coyotes over a corpse, their backs to me, empty medical bags tossed haphazardly to the ground. I couldn’t see their faces but I heard the small grunts and groans.
    O ne word replayed in my head: feral.
    It wasn’t a state I ever wanted to be seen in.
    “ I can smell it.” I inhaled as if to make my point. “It smells like …” Human blood certainly hadn’t had a scent before. Now, it smelled deliciously sweet. There was no mistaking a burning desire growing in the pit of my body. If I were human, perhaps it would inspire hunger pangs. “… like something I’d like.”
    “Something you’d like ?” Amelie’s springy blond curls bounced as she cocked her head, her emerald-green eyes dissecting me. Apparently there was something wrong with me, though I wasn’t too upset about it. In fact, if anything, I was relieved. Elated!
    Then again, if I wasn’t a blood-crazed fiend by now, then what was I? Had the Fates found a way to perverse things yet again?
    Amelie thrust a bag into my hands. She’d always been the exuberant one of the bunch. “Maybe you just need to taste it for the first time,” she said, her voice raspy, goading me like a puppy. “Go on … try it!”
    Caden’s hand held mine. “Maybe we should talk to Sofie about your … differences first.”
    M y fingers gently squeezed the bag of red liquid. And then I looked at Veronique and Julian again. If I tried the blood, would I morph into a feral creature with the first taste? “How long will they be like that?”
    Amelie’s eyes followed mine. “It should ease up after a few days, but …” Her face fell. “I miss him already.”
    “ They’ll be fine soon,” Caden said, his hand rubbing gently against