The Siren Series 3: Brandon (A Siren Novel) by Marata Eros Read Free Book Online Page B

popping the door handle behind her and sliding out the passenger side.
    I'm out the driver's side and around to hers before her toes tap the asphalt. I capture her body as it slides out, and she gasps.
    “That's not possible,” she whispers.
    I nod. “It is if I'm vampire.”
    “Right,” she says for the second time.
    I watch her eyelids flutter as her body goes limp.
    I don't think it's from blood loss this time.
    Probably too much to absorb. It's not every day a woman gets fucked, bled, and told she's from an ancient sect of witches.
    Scanning the parking lot and finding it quiet, I blur to her small VW Rabbit and grab the keys from my pocket where I stuffed them earlier.
    I open the door and slide Alicia in the back seat.
    Now I have two problems. I have a part-blood breeder and a pureblood. One I found through circumstance and desperation.
    The other calls to me like a beacon from a light house, as though I'm a lost ship at sea.
    I hop in, start the car, and with a short search, find the address for Alicia's domicile.
    I pull out of the parking lot without a backward glance.

CHAPTER NINE
    Nova
     
    Ren takes out two sabers, and I gulp back a gasp. He might have been out carousing for a good chunk of the night, but he'd not made himself so scarce he was MIA on the Protect Nova detail.
    The Reapers circle him, Kellan trying to get closer to me.
    “You'd have to rape me to stick it to me, Reaper,” I say. Just to, yʼknow, strengthen our position.
    It doesn't really do that, though—it just pisses off the meanest of the three.
    He hisses, leaping forward, and I try to dodge his grasp. Kellan's hands circle my wrist like a vice before I can move an inch. He's that fast. Reapers make regular vamps look like snails.
    “Let me go, ya turd!” I scream into his face.
    He hisses, diving for my throat like a bloodthirsty hummingbird.
    I pinwheel backward, hitting the button on my switchblade I remembered to bring, and nail a lucky stab right underneath his chin.
    Neither vamps nor Were dig the high silver content.
    Kellan bats it away with his free hand. The hilt breaks, skittering across the archaic, pockmarked vinyl flooring.
    The blade breaks off inside his mouth like an exclamation point.
    Interesting look.
    Kellan's face thins down to flat planes and sharp angles. This close to him, I can taste his anger. I don't see him move, but I sail through the air when he backhands me.
    I land into the rack of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and pink Sno Balls. My teeth snap together as I slide down, landing hard on my ass. Again.
    A Twinkie falls into my lap, and like bad comedy, my stomach roars to life.
    Kellan is making for me and I don't have a lot of choice.
    I get out my second blade I am never without, bathed in magic and slice my wrist. I’m careful to make a horizontal cut so I don't accidentally kill myself.
    The Reapers scent the air like blood hounds, and I note Ren has removed the arm of one of them.
    The Reaper spins, blood spurting from his shoulder even as the limb tries to re-grow.
    Goddess, he's like an octopus . Or a sad Monty Python re-make.
    My fingers tingle as blood leaks from my arm. I use the still-standing rack beside the smashed Twinkie to stand. Scooping blood from the slit at my wrist, I recite a spell so ancient, so simple, I hold it like a nursery rhyme as I fling blood at Kellan.
    It smacks his face, and he stops, frozen in place.
    “Now,” I say with a smile as I saunter toward him. “You're all bound up and shit, so this is the time for me to cut your teeny weenie off.”
    He hisses, teeth snapping to get at me.
    I toss more of my blood at him, and his mouth stops moving. Only his eyes hate me from across the tacky convenience store.
    I make a cursory pass around the place, realizing that All Night Long is missing Wu.
    Mikhail and his cohort approach me cautiously.
    “Don't,” I say. “It only takes a drop, guys.”
    Mikhail's nostrils flare, and he shakes his head, as though trying to come free