Bloodspell Read Online Free PDF Page A

within days, despite her blood's atypical dark color, her blood count was back to normal, healthy levels, and the abnormal cells that had supported the initial diagnosis seemed to have disappeared. They'd kept her in a medically induced coma for four days after she'd been admitted, but for all intents and purposes, her recovery had been deemed a medical miracle.
    A miracle or the devil's own luck?
    Victoria breathed slowly and ignored the errant thought, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth as she walked to the entrance of the building. That chapter of her life was now closed. Over.
    After she'd turned seventeen, things had just felt different. It had felt like she could do anything. Maybe it was the freedom from the chains of St. Xavier's, but at Windsor, Victoria discovered a new lease on life. This was her fresh start—new school, new personality, no craziness. She had even made sure that she looked different. Her hair had been cut in a flattering shoulder length style, and she'd chosen to wear a scarlet sweater, a far cry from the more somber colors she usually favored. She was older and wiser, and things would be different.
    "Admissions, please?" she asked the security guard at the entrance. He nodded over his shoulder to the right without even raising his eyes from the magazine he'd been reading. Victoria went into the building and filed the required paperwork with the clerk, receiving her senior class schedule in exchange. She was finished in ten minutes. As she turned to leave the Admissions Office, she collided with someone walking in from outside and her papers went flying.
    "Omigod, I am so sorry! That was totally my fault. I wasn't watching where I was going."
    "I hardly think you were solely to blame," said a melodic husky voice.
    Was that a
French
accent??? Victoria's head whipped up from where she was kneeling to collect her papers, and she immediately banged heads with him again as he knelt down to help her. The single thought that registered before stars blinded her vision was that he didn't look
anything
like the boys she'd known at St. Xavier's! He had strange eyes that were so light they didn't seem to have any color in them. They seemed hard, out of sync with the boyish contours of his face.
    "Ouch," she said, suddenly tongue-tied. "That was ... me. I'm so sorry." Her eyes met his startling silver ones and her heart almost stopped as he smiled at her. His smile did not quite seem to touch his eyes despite the brilliance of it, and she bent her head quickly.
    "Apology accepted. I'm Christian, Christian Devereux." The velvety voice washed over her already overheated senses, and her hands shook as her own voice stuck, paralyzed in her chest. Where she came from, boys did not speak like that, with mellifluous, perfect diction and voices that sounded like butterscotch! It was a voice that was also at odds with the hardness of his eyes. It confused her.
    "I'm Tori Warrick. I'm a senior, I mean, I just enrolled ... transfer," she said. God, what was wrong with her! He was just a boy, for goodness' sake. Her hands felt clammy as she gathered up her papers. Her heart was hammering heatedly in her chest.
    Stop it,

she told herself. She couldn't understand the sudden rush of adrenaline deafening her ears, the unexpected liquidity of her limbs. His eyes met hers, and her blood burned in response.
    Christian was not what she would consider in conventional terms to be good-looking. His face, though perfect in its symmetry, lacked the softness that would make him handsome. But he was ... magnetic. Dark blond waves of hair framed a face of striking sharpness, with strange silver-colored eyes as she'd noticed before. A thin white scar curved into his left eyebrow.
    He had long delicate hands, she noticed as he gathered the last of the papers before handing them to her. His mouth was wide, with beautifully shaped lips lending a brief softness to the rest of his face. Beautifully shaped
smiling

lips!