Fated Blood: A paranormal erotic romance series (The Twisted Destiny Saga Book 5) by Franca Storm Read Free Book Online Page B

them.
    Marella chuckled.
    Nathanial grinned at her.
    And then he stepped forward and said to Ryan, “Sorry. Let’s go before I reveal too much.”
    “ Before ?” Ryan complained as he followed Nathanial to the door.

 
     
    CHAPTER 9
    As Ryan and Nathanial turned onto the street that housed Kristoff’s club, Ryan suddenly stopped in his tracks. He sniffed the air and glanced around erratically.
    “What is it?” Nathanial asked.
    “I…I must be drunker than I’d realized. I thought I was smelling Cora.” He shook his head vigorously. “Impossible. She’s a vampire now. I shouldn’t be able to smell her like I could before.”
    “It may not be as impossible as you think.”
    Ryan’s gaze snapped to his. “What?”
    “Luca is here too.”
    Both of them turned abruptly to their right. A second later, Cora stumbled through the door of a bar. Luca emerged after her and reached for her hurriedly, holding her with one hand around her waist and the other holding her hair back as she hunched forward and vomited blood all over the street.
    “That’s a vampire bar,” Nathanial told Ryan. “Vampires frequent it to feed on willing humans.”
    “The sex-for-blood thing.”
    “Yes, although I doubt very much that Luca would have held up his end of the deal, not with Cora. He would have compelled their victim instead.”
    Luca looked up, sensing their presence.
    “She fed off an impure human?” Nathanial asked as he and Ryan joined them.
    “No. The owner checks for drugs in their system before he lets them in. She’s rejecting regular human blood.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “And vampire blood. The only blood that she can keep down is mine.”
    Ryan growled low in his throat. His growl escalated as he watched Cora stand up, wipe her mouth, and then bury her face in Luca’s chest as she sobbed.
    “Ryan, can you watch her for a moment?” Luca asked.
    “What?”
    “Watch her? I need to speak with my father.”
    “I…fine,” Ryan said, stepping forward.
    Luca pulled away and guided Cora to Ryan. When Ryan didn’t open his arms to receive her, Luca snarled at him. “Please, Ryan. It’s just for a few moments.”
    “Fine.” He opened his arms with great reluctance. Cora rested her head against his chest and he hesitantly wrapped his arms around her as loosely as possible. “Hurry up,” he told Luca and Nathanial.
    The two of them nodded and walked away around the corner out of Ryan’s earshot.
    Ryan looked down at Cora nestled against him. For a brief moment he was transported back to the time when he’d held her in his arms. But the woman he was holding now wasn’t her. She was a vampire. Vampire Cora. She might look like her and smell like her, for some strange reason, but it wasn’t her anymore. She was a demon now.
    She pulled away after a few moments and looked up at him. He was startled by the sight of her big, blue eyes staring back at him. The last time he’d seen her, after she’d first woken up as a vampire, he’d only seen her demon eyes—black and devoid of sentiment. But now he was looking into the eyes he once knew.
    But they were gone in a flash as the demon within suddenly rose to the surface. Before he knew what was happening, she slammed him against the wall and sank her fangs into his neck.
    He struggled against her and thrust both his hands into her chest, knocking her back.
    She ran at him again.
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” he muttered under his breath, bracing himself as she attacked.
     
    #
     
    “If she’s draining your energy as she feeds from you and you’re seeing flashes of white light in her eyes, it may mean that the vampire transformation didn’t take hold as it normally does during a turning,” Nathanial told Luca.
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means there is a possibility that the sorceress part of her is transcending the vampire.”
    Luca scoffed. “The power required to do that would be—”
    “The very power that Cora had possessed prior to her