Blood Ties Bundle: Blood Ties Book One: The Turning / Blood Ties Book Two: Possession / Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes to Ashes / Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night. Jennifer Armintrout

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and winced in pain. My whole face was sore.

      My compact lay innocently on the ground. I picked it up and checked my reflection.

      My face, usually pretty by most people’s standards, was twisted into a vision of horror. Cruel eyes peered out under a flattened brow. My cheekbones sloped down, forming a snout with my bizarrely elongated upper jaw. I pulled back my lips. My teeth were unevenly spaced in their roomy new setting, my canines lengthened into sharp points.

      I’d seen Nathan transform this way, and my nightmares were filled with visions of John Doe’s monstrous face, but I’d never considered such a thing could happen to me. I screamed and scrambled to my feet.

      I fled from the donor house, gulping the fresh air as if it were water and I a lost traveler in the desert. Dahlia followed me. She leaned against the scorched cinder blocks and watched me check and recheck my face in the mirror. The demon was gone. A frightened woman stared back. My breath escaped in great white puffs of steam.

      “Poor baby.” She put on her long black coat and hugged it tightly around her waist. She wore the same coat, I realized, and used the same gesture as the girl I’d followed into the club. But I hadn’t followed Dahlia…

      She shook her head, laughing. “You guys never learn. You think you’re so smart. ‘Oh, we’re at the top of the food chain.’”

      She pulled out a pocketknife and idly ran it up and down her neck. “The fact is, there’s power out there your kind can’t understand.”

      I stared at her in fascination. “What are you talking about?”

      She smiled. “Poor baby. Daddy didn’t bother to tell you anything, did he? Just ran right out after he got what he wanted.” Her mouth formed a momentary picture of disgust. “That’s so like him.”

      With a flick of her wrist, she punctured her taut skin with the knife. A drop of blood welled and shivered on the surface of the wound before it broke and rolled down her neck.

      My tongue grew thick. My body ached for more blood, though the thought repulsed me. I forced myself to look away. “Who are you talking about?”

      I wanted to watch her face when she answered, but the scent of her blood was too tempting. I feared what would happen if I looked again, so I fixed my gaze on the streetlights above the highway.

      “Cyrus, you silly goose. Don’t you know your own sire?”

      I’d known something wasn’t right when we left the club. Maybe I’d known from the moment I saw the phantom girl on the street. But instead of following my intuition, I’d followed Dahlia. Right into a trap.

      “I can’t believe how stupid some of you can be,” she shouted, suddenly agitated. “Your stories are splashed all over the papers, and yet you have no clue that someone might recognize you. I don’t even know why he let you have his blood.” She let out a sigh and appeared to calm herself. “Now you’ve made me lose my temper, and that really pisses me off.”

      I watched her as she slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and muttered to herself, pacing back and forth. She stopped and faced me. Her expression was blank.

      “Your little bookstore friend took care of the last one for me. But sometimes, if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself.” She pointed at me with the knife.

      Suddenly, I was so weak I couldn’t stand. I fell to my knees, wincing as I hit the dirt.

      “Good girl.” She threw the knife at me. It pierced the frozen ground inches from my knee. She took another deep breath, laughing. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. Do you ever have days like that, where you just feel—”

      “Crazy?” I eyed the blade. It was so close. I should have been able to grab it and get to my feet before Dahlia could reach me, but my body was limp and heavy. “What do you want?”

      “What do I want, what do I want?” she singsonged, scooping up the knife before I could stop her. “You sound just like the last one I took care of. You guys always try to bargain.”

      She held the point of the knife to my throat. “I want to kill you.”

      “Why?” It was barely a whisper. I imagined the tip of the knife puncturing my skin the way my fangs had split hers.

      She leaned closer, twisting the blade against my neck but never breaking my skin. “Because you took what’s mine.”

      “What? What did I take?” I wanted to swallow, but I was afraid it would kill me. “I don’t even know you.”

      “You’re right. You don’t know me, bitch.” She lifted the knife and, without hesitation, plunged it into my stomach.

      I gasped from the pain. I’d seen numerous stab wounds in the E.R. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined they felt like this. The burning and tearing, coupled with the invasion of an object all my muscles tensed to reject. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

      Dahlia pulled the blade out of me and wiped it clean on the front of my shirt. “I don’t know why he keeps doing this. He knows you all die.”

      “You’re not making any sense,” I wheezed, clutching my abdomen.

      It was the wrong thing to say.

      “I’m not making any sense?” She brought the weapon down again, piercing my side. “No! He’s not making any sense! He says he loves me. He promises to give me power. But it’s not time, Dahlia! It’s not time! Then he wastes his blood on a piece of trash like you! Look at you. You can’t even stand up.”

      She kicked me. It was a dangerous thing for someone to do to a wounded vampire, and this knowledge was apparently as much of a surprise to her as it was to me.

      Leaping to my feet, I lunged for her, fueled purely by agony and instinct. I wrestled the knife from her hand and brought it to her throat.

      “I didn’t take anything from you,” I whispered into her ear. “He didn’t mean to make me. I was an accident. I’ve got no interest in you, your vampire boyfriend or any of this fucking vampire crap.”

      I threw her to the ground. She peered up at me through her disheveled hair. Her eyes were hard and furious.

      “Yeah, you were an accident all right!” she screamed. “But it doesn’t matter! You’ll be dead by morning!”

      My anger deserted me, and the weakness returned. Dahlia’s voice was too loud, too shrill. Blood flowed freely from my wounds. I knew I needed to stop the bleeding, but I could think of nothing but getting away from Dahlia.

      I staggered through the rail yard. Every step I took felt as though I were descending into a dark, warm pit. My pulse thrummed in my ears. It was slowing.

      The impact of my footfalls on the uneven ground jarred my ankles and sent shock waves of pain up my legs. When I reached pavement, my body seemed to know where to go on its own. I moved in slow motion, but I must have been running because I reached Nathan’s apartment in a matter of minutes.

      I stood stupidly on СКАЧАТЬ