Blood Challenge Read Online Free PDF

on their fear.
    Lily was okay with what she’d done then, but that situation wasn’t likely to arise a second time. She figured she could retire that particular trick. The other one was freaky in its own way, but nowhere near as disturbing.
    Mindspeech was a dragon thing, but Sam said she had the potential to learn it. She’d actually done it once with Rule, but that had been an accident she hadn’t been able to repeat. But she’d been offered the chance to learn. After thinking it over, she’d accepted.
    Her teacher was Sam, also known as Sun Mzao, the black dragon, who was sort of her grandfather-in-magic, if not DNA. A couple times a week she went to his lair and sat with him. It was hard to describe what happened. On a thinking level, not much did. She’d sit. After awhile he’d light the wick of a candle—easy for a dragon to do, no matches needed—and tell her, Watch . The first time he lit the candle, he had given her one additional instruction: Find me here .
    So far, all she’d found were the nightmares.
    Rule was every bit as good at saying nothing as she was. He waited, his thumbs making soothing circles along her collarbone.
    “It was Helen again,” she admitted. “I don’t have to be a psych major to see why she stars in the nightmare. I’m trying to learn mindspeech, which Sam insists is not telepathy, but the two are next-door neighbors. I killed the only telepath I’ve ever met.”
    “You killed a crazy woman who was trying to kill you and open a hellgate.”
    “True, but somehow not pertinent.” She shook her head, disliking her own vagueness but unable to dispel it.
    His thumbs circled back, pressing more firmly, finding the tension at her nape and easing it. “Are you committed to learning mindspeech? At first you weren’t sure it was worth it. If it opens you to such fears—”
    She snorted. “This from the man who moved into a high-rise on purpose so he’d be forced to ride in the elevator every day.”
    He smiled faintly. “Damn those torpedoes, hmm?”
    “Pretty much. I get a week off, though. Sam will be gone for at least that long for one of their sing-alongs. Um … I’m not to speak of it, except to you, and you’re not to tell anyone.” Dragons were mostly solitary, but at unpredictable intervals they gathered to sing together—though Lily thought she and Rule were the only two in their realm who knew this. Except for Grandmother, of course. “That reminds me. While Sam’s gone, Grandmother and Li Qin are heading for Disneyland.”
    He grinned. “That I’d like to see.”
    “She loves Disneyland. She used to take me and my sisters every year. Are the burgers burning?”
    “Shit.” He let her go and spun to the stove.
    Feet thudded in the hall. “I’m ready!” Toby called. “Are the burgers done? It took me a little longer ’cause I had to pet Harry. He was lonely.”
    Harry was Dirty Harry, Lily’s cat. Though he and Rule had achieved détente—based mainly on Rule’s willingness to give him ham at regular intervals—Harry had never gotten beyond a sort of disdainful tolerance.
    He adored Toby.
    That made no sense. According to Rule, Toby didn’t smell of wolf yet, but scent wasn’t the only reason Harry didn’t like Rule, probably not even the main reason. Harry was not a friendly beast. He had to be sedated to go to the vet. He attacked the bodyguards whenever he got a chance. He couldn’t stand Lily’s family—well, except for Li Qin, but no one could dislike Li Qin.
    Lily had worried about how the cat and the boy would adapt to each other. Toby was a normal nine-year-old boy … which meant he did everything a suspicious and territorial cat hated. He ran. He jumped. He grabbed. He yelled. She’d been sure Toby would be scratched, clawed, disdained.
    Yet from the moment Harry had sniffed Toby’s outstretched hand, he’d become a Toby acolyte. He purred when he saw Toby. He slept with Toby. He even condescended to play with the cat toys Toby