Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

generations, cataloguing all things Hunter. The open page
depicted a printed drawing of a Werewolf and a human. Between them,
someone had penciled in the image of something half-human,
half-Werewolf. It connected to each of the two figures by the tips
of its fingers. Arrows had been drawn to the head of each and notes
scrawled beside them. I strained to read it from where I stood but
I couldn’t make it out.
    Vera had been looking into the bond
for weeks now. After all this time with no news, I’d given up on
her ever finding anything.
    “ What does it say?” I
asked.
    Wes leaned closer against my
shoulders. “Does it give a cure?” he asked.
    Vera shook her head. “To cure yourself
would be to condemn them.” She coughed, a heavy, bone-deep sound.
With each expelled breath, her shoulders racked and shook. I
offered her the mug Fee had left but she waved me away. After a
deep breath she said, “They retain themselves through their
connection to you.”
    “ I don’t understand,” I
said. “What do you mean ‘retain themselves’?”
    “ Their humanity. It’s … a
product of your connection.” I could hear her wheezing and though I
had a million questions about what she was telling me, I let it go.
I hated to do anything that would make her worse and right now,
talking seemed high on the list.
    “ I will look into it.
Thank you, Vera,” I said.
    “ Tara … I didn’t get as
much time with you as I would’ve liked,” Vera began.
    Guilt pricked at me. “I know, I’m
sorry. I—”
    “ No, it’s nothing to be
sorry for. I want you to know the choice is …” she paused to
swallow, which seemed to take a lot of effort. “The choice is
always yours.”
    “ The choice for
what?”
    “ The paths I see for you.
There are still two. There are always two.”
    I shuddered as I
remembered the last time I’d heard her say that. Two paths, she’d
said. That in itself wasn’t terrifying. What she’d said after
tended to make my heart beat triple time. You may or may not find your way. If you do, it’ll be the best
thing that ever happened to either society. If you don’t, it will
kill you.
    No big deal.
    “ Vera, I—” The sound of
her coughing drowned out my words. I reached for the mug again,
ready to offer her another sip.
    Before I could bring it to her lips,
Wes stiffened and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Tara,” he
said.
    I looked down. Vera’s eyes were
closed, the lids so purple and thin, I imagined seeing straight
through them to her irises. I set the mug aside, panic bubbling up.
“Is she …?”
    Wes reached around me and held two
fingers to the side of Vera’s neck. I held my breath.
    “ She’s alive.”
    After he said it, I noticed the faint
rise and fall of her chest.
    The door opened and Fee walked in
followed by a man and a woman carrying a stretcher between them.
Both wore white shirts with a red cross emblazoned across the left
corner.
    “ Oh, what happened?” Fee
asked, alarm registering on her face when she caught sight of
Vera.
    “ Don’t worry, she’s
breathing,” Wes said. He pulled me out of the way so the female
paramedic could work. “She passed out,” Wes said to the woman as
she slipped a blood pressure cuff onto Vera’s arm.
    The woman nodded and they went to
work, spreading supplies across Vera’s blanketed body as they
worked. I stood against a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with Wes and
Fee, each of my hands in one of theirs. Fee’s shook slightly as
they loaded Vera onto the stretcher and began wheeling her toward
the door.
    Fee’s hand slipped free of mine as she
moved to follow. “I’m going to ride with them. Can you …?” She
looked at Wes questioningly.
    “ Go,” he said, waving her
out. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
    “ Thank you,” she said,
flashing him a tight smile before disappearing into the
hall.
    Wes followed her out. I could hear him
assuring Fee he would call Jack and my mom to let them know to meet
her at the hospital.
    The