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

front door opened and
closed.
    I stayed where I was.
    If you don’t, it will kill
you.
    Most days, I didn’t give extra thought
to those words. It was like my brain knew it would be too much, so
I cast it aside. But the way Vera had looked, the resignation in
her eyes, made me think she knew more about my choice and what was
coming than she’d let on.
    One of Vera’s gifts was a clairvoyance
of sorts. I’d learned it was based on people’s current choices and
the future could change if we chose a different path. At first, it
had unsettled and scared me to learn she’d glimpsed me leading The
Cause with Wes by my side. Most days, it still did. So did the
second path she spoke of. Seats on the Hunter council were a
birthright, passed down to each generation. In my case, my mother
had chosen to be skipped. After losing my father when I was a baby,
she wanted no part of a Hunter life, including a seat with CHAS.
Especially that. And so it would fall to me when Grandma stepped
down. If CHAS—or Steppe—didn’t arrest me first.
    The part about Wes had always fit,
even before I really believed what she was saying. But me being a
leader? I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t want it. That kind of
pressure and power, holding people’s lives in my hands, it was too
scary.
    Bailey’s death had been enough of my
fault that I wanted nothing to do with a position where my orders
or decisions would lead to more losses of those I cared about. What
if I messed it all up? What if I got everyone killed?
    It seemed like death—or at least the
threat of it—was everywhere. First Bailey and then all those people
whose bodies had rejected the change to Werewolf. Now, Vera was
getting worse with an illness we’d yet to identify and had no way
to cure.
    Alex’s face flashed in my mind but I
shoved it away. I refused to put him into that category. He wasn’t
going to die. He was going to make it. He would live to curse me
for biting him. And for me to beat him senseless for going behind
my back and bringing Kane and his strike team to the woods that
day.
    I looked up at the sound of heavy
steps against the hardwood. I didn’t need to see to know who it
was. The familiarity inside my head was enough. He stepped through
the doorway, and I focused on the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in
front of me. It was a face I’d seen a million times, though his
expression at the moment was much more somber than the easy-going,
laidback look he usually wore.
    “ Hi, George,” I said,
packing an apology into my words.
    “ Come here.” He held his
arms out and I stepped into them, letting him pull me close. I laid
my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes.
    Sometimes, our bond was helpful. It
was nice not having to explain with words what I’d been feeling—and
to finally be in a place of solid friendship with him again so that
I could appreciate his comfort. Not to mention that if Wes walked
in right now, I could rest easy knowing he wouldn’t try to bite
George’s head off—literally.
    I couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment
when it’d happened, but somewhere along the way, any romantic
feelings that had lingered between George and I after our breakup a
few months ago had dissolved, and we’d found our way back to being
friends.
    Forging our bond had actually helped.
I thought it would’ve made things worse or more awkward, especially
for George, experiencing every single emotion that I did.
Especially the ones I felt for Wes. Or worse, Alex. Instead, George
had been there for me. An ear, a shoulder, a sounding board.
Whatever I needed. I’d come to rely on him almost as much as I did
Wes. And I loved him for it.
    “ How’s Vera?” George
asked.
    “ Unconscious,” I said, my
voice catching as I pictured her pale face and closed eyes while
they wheeled her out.
    George hugged me tighter. Pleasant
thoughts washed over me, sent from his end of the bond to mine. I
knew it was his way of trying to cheer me up and I stood quietly,
soaking