All That Bleeds by Kimberly Frost Read Free Book Online

dots.

    She’d survived somehow. Impossible as that had seemed.

    She’d been so anemic that her body had gone into shock. But she wasn’t suffocating now. Why wasn’t she, she wondered.

    “Did you give me blood?” she asked sharply.

    “Had to.”

    “Not your blood.”

    He smiled. “No. Not tainted blood. Clean human blood. I would’ve given you muse blood, but that’s generally hard to come by.”

    She frowned. It hadn’t been hard to come by for the ventala who’d fed on her. “I can’t remember what happened,” she said.

    “Here,” he said, holding out a glass. “Orange juice fortified with iron.”

    She took it and sipped. “I must have been kidnapped—and drugged, I suppose.” She glanced at him to gauge his expression.

    “Tell me the last thing you remember,” he said. His voice was so smooth, so calm and reassuring. She was grateful for that.

    “I’d been at a party.”

    “What happened there?”

    “Nothing special. I remember leaving…then my mind’sblank, like the memories were erased.” She shook her head. “I woke up in a strange apartment. I collapsed on the balcony.” She ran her fingers absently over the blanket. “How did you…?”

    “Don’t worry about how I found you. Concentrate on how you got into the Varden to begin with.”

    “I don’t know. You’re the only person in this area that I’m acquainted with—remotely acquainted with,” she felt compelled to add. The letters had been reasonably safe, but this definitely wasn’t. Being in the same room with him? So much could go wrong. He could lose control.

    She didn’t completely trust herself either. There was something about him that she found so compelling. She made her tone falsely optimistic. “It’s incredible that I ended up here.”

    She shivered as the circumstances sank in. She was lying in a bed in the home of a ventala who’d been interested in her ever since they’d met. One she’d written letters to. Letters that smacked of a familiarity they were never supposed to have. Of course, he understood the situation. The limitations. She knew he did, because he’d never tried to see her. Not once.

    She realized she might be able to overcome the disaster of the night, to save herself from ruin. If she was clever and quick, the Wreath Muse position might not be lost and, with it, her only hope of saving her dad.

    “I have to go home immediately,” she said.

    He studied her in a cool, assessing way. Would he help her or not?

    A knock at the door startled her, and she jerked.

    He watched her for a moment, ignoring the door. “I know you’ve been through something and that you’re scared—”

    “I’m not scared.”

    He smiled at her bravado, which they both knew wasn’t completely genuine. “You’re on edge,” he offered diplomatically.

    She shrugged.

    “Well, you can relax while you’re in my house. No one will hurt you here.”

    She ran a finger over the bandage on her wounded arm.The place where she’d been bitten. “Not even you?” she asked boldly.

    He leaned forward so his mouth was very close to her ear. “The only way I’ll bite you is if you invite me to.”

    Her heart raced, and her lips went dry. “I’ll never do that,” she whispered in a voice that was more breathless than she intended.

    “Probably not.” He leaned back. “You look good with color in your cheeks again.”

    He walked to the door. She fisted the covers to brace herself as he opened it. She recognized the waiting man. She’d seen him in pictures. His name was Mr. Orvin, and he was the enormous bodyguard with spiked blond hair who went everywhere with Merrick, as if Merrick needed a bodyguard.

    “What’s up, Ox?” Merrick asked.

    “Cato Jacobi’s downstairs, boss. He wants to talk to you. Seems to think we’ve got something that belongs to him.” Orvin’s quick glance at her conveyed his meaning.

    Alissa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I don’t know anyone named