Made By Design (Blood Bound Series Book 2) by J.L. Myers Read Free Book Online

normal. So I had to be guarded. I had to make sure you weren’t plotting some kind of race revenge.”
    I remembered Vanessa’s warnings and her attitude changing from friendly but intrusive to prickly and suspicious. She’d never lacked confidence in shutting down Ty’s pack. Even Troy, who hated authority as much as he hated vampires, always backed down at her icy stare. I thought again of the mark across Marika’s neck, and the flash of gold which I later realized was an identical mark along Vanessa’s neck. A mark to block her blood’s scent. Something inside me clicked, remembering how Marika had used the mark while imprinting me to seduce Ty. “
You,
” I said, narrowing my eyes at Vanessa. “
You
marked Marika. Without you she wouldn’t have been able to trick Ty.”
    “I did,” she said, red curls blowing across her neck and looking like a vibrant, living scarf. “Though I didn’t know marking her would create such drama.”
    My gaze became incredulous, but before I could speak Dorian cut in. “Vanessa told me what happened and I believe her.” They exchanged a quick look before glancing away from each other.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Dorian “You’re my brother.”
    “I promised I wouldn’t.” Dorian shrugged, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “And I didn’t want you to hate Vanessa like you did Marika. Especially when what happened wasn’t her fault.”
    “Vanessa thought,” Ty said, “that Marika wanted to keep her growth into a lycan to herself. She would never have interfered if she’d known what her plans were.”
    Remembering her harsh tone and skewering gaze as she reprimanded both Troy and Marika after the fact, I guess I believed her. I sighed and pushed the memories of Ty and Marika almost naked in my bed to the back of my mind. “Fine. Whatever. It’s in the past, and we have bigger things to worry about now.”
    Ty caught my hand with his, the look on his face questioning. Realizing his previous tension had been over keeping something else from me, I squeezed, lifting my free hand to rub up and down his scarred bicep. Of all the things I knew about Ty, there was one thing I couldn’t question. Ty was nothing if not loyal to the end. That was a trait I loved about him, and one I could never blame him for. “So, do you know what my mom’s mark means?” I asked Vanessa.
    She stopped biting her lip and smiled. “It’s a corruption of a mark that wards against a vampire’s compulsion—this version makes vocal compulsion possible. Though the compelling vamp would need to be pretty powerful for the embedded belief to remain so intact like with your mom. Being a vampire opportunistic mark, I’ve never given it anyone before. Given my alliance with the wolves, I never would.”
    Dorian, Kendrick, and I didn’t doubt that Caius was behind this mark that kept his lies as the truth that Mom remembered. Defeat weighed down my shoulders. Knowing the danger, we’d previously decided to keep Caius’s attempt to kill me from Mom. We’d even planned to erase any memories Dorian had stirred through our earlier interrogation.
    Would she ever be able to access those real memories, to see Caius for the monster he truly was? “So, as long as Caius is compelling her she’ll never be able to remember the truth?”
    “No, that’s just it,” Ty said. “That mark is temporary. It would have to be re-administered to keep working.”
    “It must last for a long time then, right?” For some reason I felt like everyone around me knew the answers and was holding back in telling me.
    “No,” Vanessa said. “Each mark’s life-span differs depending on who’s marked and the technique of the one doing the marking. It could last days, a week, sometimes even a few weeks. But no more.”
    My head shook back and forth. None of what they’d said made sense. Caius had always been there while I was imprisoned at the Armaya. There hadn’t been any time where he could have left and