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

“I know it’s stressful, with all the worst members of agnatic society here. But chin up, and all that. It’s only one night.”
    “The worst?” I repeated, still feeling slightly nauseated. “Do you include yourself in that description?”
    Cosimo chuckled. “Oh, most definitely.”
    He offered me his arm. Better the devil you know, the old phrase went. Except I didn’t know Dorian’s world. Not yet. If I was being dragged into it, I needed to—even though that was most definitely not what the saying meant.
    I hooked my arm around his, and he led me back through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor to the shelter behind the colonnade. “There you go, cara. I’ll get you some food and champagne.”
    I nodded, taking the nearest seat, and Cosimo disappeared into the crowd.
    The crowd was thinner this far from the buffet. I saw no other cognates, but a clutch of agnates laughed uproariously a short distance away, having commandeered several bottles of wine and pulled some of the chairs into a circle at the edge of the dance floor. Several were slumped over, blinking slowly, and as I watched, one produced a syringe and casually filled it, tapping her vein several times before plunging it in.
    That couldn’t possibly be legal. I tried to make myself invisible against the wall, but they showed no interest in anything that happened outside their group.
    With a flourish, a male produced a baggie with a line of white pills in the bottom. He poured the contents into his hand, and he tossed them up in the air to whoops and hollers of delight. As the agnates scrambled to catch them, two men collided hard.
    What happened next was almost too fast to see. One moment, they were crashing drunkenly into each other—the next, the large one had lifted the smaller one by the neck and flung him a good twenty feet onto the ballroom floor.
    The dancers dodged with inhuman nimbleness, all except a consort who ended up being clipped by the man’s flailing leg, but even he was caught before he hit the ground and lifted out of the way of further harm.
    The orchestra broke off, and the thrown agnate lay still on the ground. A sudden silence spread like a shockwave through the room.
    Was he dead? I stood up, not knowing what to do. Should I call 911? Could paramedics even help a vampire?
    But then the man lurched to his feet, shaking his head, and he gave a roar and rushed back toward his attacker with the same inhuman speed.
    The room seemed to implode as other vampires rushed toward the two brawlers. In an instant, both the assailant and the victim were pinned under the weight of a dozen bodies, then dragged to their feet and unceremoniously hustled up the stairs.
    Dorian appeared at my side, his eyes blazing. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
    “I was getting away from a horrible woman—”
    He took my arm, sweeping me along with him. “Did I not tell you that all society would be coming tonight? Most of these people are not my friends.”
    “I’m sorry,” I blurted, frightened by his fury.
    He stopped. We were now at the other end of the ballroom from where the fight had broken out. “No, Cora. I am sorry. I was trying not to scare you, and I put you in danger.”
    “I thought you said I was safe now,” I said weakly. “Safe from any agnate here.”
    “Against deliberate attempts to harm you. That group, though, in their current state....” He shook his head.
    “Who were those people? Those agnates?” I corrected.
    “Agnates are people, too,” he said. “And they were one of the more unsavory elements of society. You have drug addicts and daredevils—we have rushers, who are all that and more.” He squeezed my shoulder gently. “I will answer all your questions later. Introductions have conventions that are broken only at our peril, but it does you a great disservice. Please, Cora, stay here, with the servants and Tiberius. He will chase away anyone who is bothering you. Just give him the chance. I