Blood Bound Read Online Free PDF

how best to explain what happened to her father without scarring her for life.”
    “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say—I wasn’t sure rationality would have had much attraction for me, either, in her position. I opened my mouth to name my one condition, but she beat me to the proverbial punch.
    “Liv, there’s one more thing…” Anne hesitated, and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever else she had to say. “I want you to work with Cam.”
    I sucked in a long, slow breath, hoping she would deliver the punch line to the world’s worst joke before I had to actually say something. But she only watched me, waiting. “No,” I said finally. “No way.” I turned to Cam for support, but could find no resistance to the idea in his expression. Instead, I found…satisfaction. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?” I demanded
    He crossed both arms over a still-broad chest. “Does it matter? Is it going to kill you to work with me on one job? For Anne?”
    Yes, it just might kill me. Or him. But there had never been a less appropriate time to explain why I’d left him. Why working with him could be more dangerous than hunting and killing a murderer on my own. And it didn’t help that while my brain protested on the basis of logic, the rest of me ached for this excuse to be near him again, if only in a professional capacity.
    But that was a bad idea. The key to resisting Cam Caballero lay in avoiding temptation—a concept he seemed to personify for me more with every glance I avoided, every memory I buried.
    “No.” I turned back to Anne, wearing my business face. The one that got me the rates and bonuses I demanded. The one that usually kept creeps off me when I followed criminals down dark alleys and through abandoned buildings. “No. That’s a deal-breaker.”
    “There are no deal-breakers when you’re bound,” Cam pointed out calmly, and suddenly I wished I’d hit him when I had the chance. “You’ll do it, or you’ll die trying to resist the compulsion.”
    “I haven’t actually asked you yet,” Anne reminded me, echoing the infuriating calm that Cam exuded like radiation—a slow, vicious poison. “But I will if I have to. Your choice.”
    “So, I either work with him because you’re asking me to, or I work with him becausere threatening to ask me to. What kind of choice is that?” I demanded.
    “It’s better than the choices I’m facing right now. The rest of my day includes picking out a casket and a black suit.”
    Another low blow. “Why Cam?” I asked, hoping to talk her out of it before she caught on and actually compelled me.
    “Because I’m short on cash but rich on resources, Liv.” Meaning the two of us, of course. “But if you’re willing to subsidize this project financially and you know someone better than Cam, then by all means…” She extended one arm toward the window and the city just now waking up. “So…do you know anyone better than Cam?”
    Damn. “Other than me? No.”
    Cam laughed out loud. “Still arrogant…”
    “Confident,” I corrected. “And willing to back that confidence up with results.”
    “Good.” He nodded, in what may have been the first look of respect I’d seen from him in more than six years. “Let’s go.”
    “Um…” I hedged. “I have something to take care of first, and we’ll need those blood samples before I can get started.” I glanced at Anne with both brows raised, and she nodded, already standing. “So, I’ll meet you here at noon?”
    “Liv, I really want to get this over with,” she repeated.
    “I know, but I have a previous commitment.” I hesitated, dreading the next part. “Oh, and…um…I’m going to need a retainer.”
    “What?”
    “You’re going to charge her?” Cam demanded, and that respect I’d seen was long gone. “She’s your friend.”
    I bristled, even though I’d expected—and understood—his reaction. “A friend who’s compelling me to work for her.” And with you. I