Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6 Read Online Free PDF Page A

I tried to imagine the amount of damage that the woman must have sustained to leave so many layers of evidence on her skin. My mind rebelled. I jerked back, and she looked up at my movement, following my gaze to her skin.
    “Ah, my love bites,” she said, smiling with a languorous sensuality. “Don’t you like them?”
    “No,” I said, standing up so hurriedly that I almost stumbled.
    She gave a girlish giggle, raising her wineglass in a half-salute. “Oh, but you will.” She threw back the wine, then wrapped her hand around the bell of the glass and squeezed.
    It shattered with a sharp sound, the broken shards slicing into her flesh as she tightened her fingers into a fist around it. Rivulets of blood streamed over her hand, dripping onto the floor.
    “Damn,” I breathed, backing away.
    She smiled up at me and then opened her hand, the piece of glass falling free as her skin closed up again, pushing them out. Her expression was almost ecstatic.
    “Oh, Cora,” she said. “You don’t know what you have to look forward to.”
    Her words went straight through me, and my guts knotted, hard. It was all too much—the music, the crowd, the awful woman in front of me. Tiberius was headed toward me, carrying an overloaded plate, and his approach was enough to kick my fight-or-flight impulse into overdrive.
    Whatever compulsion Dorian had placed on me to stay had faded now. I’d fulfilled my obligations, standing at his side, forcing a smile at his friends. I was done. All I wanted now was to escape—to go back to my campus apartment, hide under my comforter, and pretend that none of this had ever happened. I just wanted my old life back, with my friends and my future and all the hopes and dreams the cancer had taken away from me.
    I turned away and fled, charging blindly between agnates and cognates alike.
    “Cora!” Tiberius’ concerned voice rang out over the conversations.
    “Madam. Wait!” I heard the outcry from the other servants behind me, but I ignored them all and pushed onward, bolting for the stairs.
    I ducked between two startled agnates, and there it was—the staircase leading up to freedom. Almost woozy with relief, I ran forward—
    Only to be caught up short by a hand on my arm.

Chapter Four
    “H o ho! It wouldn’t be much of a party without the guest of honor.”
    I spun around.
    A male agnate held me, his expression at once avuncular and amused under his carefully tousled light brown hair.
    “Let me go,” I said tightly.
    He dropped my arm immediately, holding up his hand palm-out in a sign of surrender. I got ready to flee again, but his smile was so disarming that I hesitated even as I felt the wave of his persuasion wash over me and leave me untouched.
    “Dorian can be a bit of a boor,” he said. “Such a stickler for propriety. He could have waited a week or two before throwing you into all this, to let you get your bearings. But he just had to go by the rules and introduce you within ten days of your conversion.”
    It was the first I’d heard of any such rule. As far as I knew, the date had been picked to put an end to people trying to kill me.
    “Who are you?” I asked bluntly. I was pretty sure he’d not joined the line of congratulations earlier, and his jocular familiarity now made me wonder why.
    He held out his hand. “Cosimo Laurentis.”
    I took it suspiciously, but he gave it a perfectly polite shake.
    “Cora Shaw,” I said.
    “Cora Shaw, Cora Thorne, it all depends on your preference now,” he said. “And of course Dorian’s. But that goes without saying, cara. Come back to the party. Dorian will be so disappointed if you leave.”
    “I don’t care,” I said, backing toward the stairs.
    “But you will,” he pointed out with a smile. “As soon as Dorian finds you.”
    I stopped. I couldn’t deny the truth of that. His caring would make me care. And that horrified me almost as much as the marks on that woman’s skin.
    “Come now, bella,” he cajoled.