Blood Mate: A Paranormal Romance by Natalie Kristen Read Free Book Online

hunger.
    But she knew that this hunger
would have to go unsatisfied. He would never take her. He would
never choose her.
    “ Bryn.” His voice
was hard, firm, forcing her to turn around to face him.
    She turned and scowled at him.
“What?”
    “ You won.”
    No I didn't.
    “ You're on the team.”
    She blinked. Really?
    This was what she had fought
for. And he had given it to her. Jett had given her this victory,
this chance.
    It was the only thing he would
give her.
    She would take this chance.
    She would prove herself to the
team, to the Council, to him.
    Bryn gave a curt nod and made
her way back to Charlotte and Charlene, who were grinning and giving
her the thumbs-up sign. She didn't trust herself to speak. The air
was thick with the rich, intoxicating scent of Jett's blood, fogging
up her mind and sending her body into involuntary spasms.
    Some Enforcers smiled at her
and whispered their congratulations as she pushed to the back of the
room and leaned against the wall. But others sneered and snickered,
and she heard churlish, disgruntled comments behind her back.
    “ I told you Jett's all
bark, no bite.” A warlock nudged the muscular demon Enforcer
beside him and smirked.
    “ He can't bite, stupid.
All he's got are blunt human teeth. No fangs.”
    There were loud snorts and
guffaws. “No fangs, no magick, no power!”
    The two chortling Enforcers
didn't know what hit them. A flash of silver, and the two Enforcers
stumbled and cried out.
    The warlock's blond ponytail
had come undone. On the wall behind him was a quivering knife. A
lock of blond hair was pinned to the wall.
    The muscular demon touched the
corner of his long, curved horn. The tip had been sliced off. He
stared at the knife sticking out from the wall. The same knife that
had lopped off the tip of his horn had sheared a golden lock off the
warlock's head.
    Everyone turned back to Jett,
silent and subdued.
    Jett might not have fangs and
magick, but he was deadly. More dangerous and deadly than most of
the rogue paranormals they hunted.
    If the rogues were bad, Jett
was the baddest of them all. But no one had ever accused him of
being unfair. He was fair to everyone, but her .
    “ Briefing for the IU is
in an hour's time,” Jett said, raking his eyes over his
Enforcers and finding the four members of his investigation unit.
His eyes lingered for a heartbeat on Bryn.
    Hardening his features to mask
the worry on his face, he strode to the door and growled over his
shoulder, “In my office. Do not be late.”
    The door slammed.
    Class dismissed.

     

CHAPTER
SEVEN

    The four of them huddled over
Jett's large desk in his office, staring at the photographs of the
murder victims.
    As they studied the grisly
pictures, Jett stood up and began to pace around his spacious office.
In a voice devoid of emotion, he went through the three murders one
by one. He was thorough and spared no details.
    He told the four Enforcers
exactly what had been done to the victims. Jett suspected that the
victims had been alive when their limbs were ripped off and eaten.
“The killer would have kept them alive for as long as possible.
He ate their limbs first, then dug out chunks from their torso. He
wanted to hear their hearts beating as he ate them piece by piece.
Their hearts would be the last thing he ate.”
    “ Why didn't he eat their
heads? I mean, he could have cracked open their skulls and devoured
their brains,” Bryn observed.
    “ He wanted us to
identify them,” Levi answered with a scowl.
    “ Yes. This is a hate
crime,” Jett said, handing out a long list of suspects. “This
is a list of the rogues we have apprehended and destroyed in the last
few years. This is by no means exhaustive, and you'll have to dig
deeper, go further on your own. But...my hunch is that the killer is
not related to anyone on this list.”
    They were to work in pairs,
and Bryn had glad to be paired with her old partner, Scott. When the
briefing ended, Scott stayed back to