Binded (The SHIELD Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

it or not, meant that everything would change. She likely wouldn’t be around as much, and maybe this time, they would actually lose contact.
    It wasn’t like this was a one night stand that had led to a Vegas wedding. This had been 10 years of helping each other out when they needed to, 10 years of sharing a bed, and 10 years of coming home to each other, periodically.
    She knew James’s story, that his heart had been broken by the death of his first love, a sickly human girl who probably loved him with her last breath. Carmen wasn’t anything like that, her strength coming from inside, her head over her heart, her body lean and strong from dance. And she didn’t depend on James for her every breath and need either. She was probably the farthest thing from a wife he had ever pictures.
    She had never believed in love either; to her, love was just a fairytale, a thing people wrote stories about. She didn’t see herself in the same clothes twice, yet alone with the same person forever. Since she was 12 and first dancing in a professional show, she had been on the move, living out of suitcases and in hotel rooms. She liked it that way, a different boy every night, a new adventure whenever a stranger smiled across the bar at her.  There were no terms to her marriage, no rules, it was a sham.
    Then why did she want his strength beside her now?
    “ Carmen, please,” Cooper was sobbing in her arms.
    “What do you want me to do?” she asked, broken hearted. She was out of strength now, out of ideas. Learning that the Shields really were rejecting her, that there was nothing left for her, was the final straw in her heart. Without them, there was no hope of another family somewhere, and when she signed those divorce papers, there was no hope of anyone to come home to either.
    “I would you to kill me before this takes me. Please.”
    “Cooper, I can’t do that,” she said, quietly. “Your brother will kill me with his bare hands if he found out I snapped your neck.”
    “He wouldn’t!” Cooper protested. “He wouldn’t and you know it.”
    “I actually don’t,” she replied. “I mean, he’ll slit my throat when I break his rules as a vampire, what difference does doing it a little earlier make?”
    “Carmen!” Cooper’s voice had laughter in it, even through the pain. “Are you so blind? Can you not see? James loves you.”
    She shook her head in the darkness.
    “James and I have a business agreement, and some good benefits that come with it.”
    “ Then you do not know him at all,” Cooper replied. “Because I know my brother, have known him for a thousand years, and I’ve never seen him more in love than he is with you.”
    “No…”
    “Oh ppht. You two can deny it until your blue in the face, but it’s true. He loves you, and you love him. No harm will ever come to you, whatever you do to me.”
    “Right,” Carmen took a shuddering breath, closing her eyes and feeling her blood pound in her temples. She knew what she had to do, and she might hate it, but she knew it was the right thing. Cooper was withering in pain, and the pain she would cause James was unbearable.
    She leaned over slightly, putting her hands on his temples, and trying to find his eyes in the darkness. Cooper’s pain was getting worse and she figured their time was short.
    “ Cooper,” she said, her voice hoarse, her heart in her throat. She had never been one to sacrifice for anyone, especially not the ridiculous notion of love.  But for such a time as this .
    I’m a fool she thought, as the knowledge that it was right passed through her mind. Forgive me .
    Carmen leaned right into his face, meeting his eyes, which had tears streaming from them.
    “ Cooper,” she repeated, her breath hot on his face. And then she whispered the words that had been kept secret by Shields over the centuries, her finger tips connected to his pulse points, and her power flowing through them. “Alligo me ad vos.” I bind myself to