Bad Blood Read Free Page B

from—
    “Magnus?”
    We break from our kiss and turn around in the direction of the voice calling my boyfriend’s name. Crossing the field is a tall, porcelain doll-faced girl with huge, green, almost catlike eyes and a red bow mouth. She has long red hair falling down to her waist and she’s wearing a slinky little black dress with platform heels.
    Who the hell is she?
    I glance back at Magnus and realize his normally pale face has gone stark white. Does he know this girl? And why is her sudden presence upsetting him so much?
    “There you are, Magnus,” the girl purrs. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’m so glad I finally caught up with you, my love.”
    Her love? Her LOVE? What the hell is going on here? I look at Magnus, then the girl, then back at Magnus again. “Um, why did she just call you her love?” I demand. And here I thought my heart was beating fast before. Now it’s the tempo of a hardcore techno song.
    “Yeah, who the hell are you?” Rayne demands, looking as if she’s ready to kick the crap out of whoever this is. I smile a little. She may be a freak, but at the end of the day she can be a good sister.
    The girl smiles. But not in a sweet kind of way. I so don’t like her already.
    “Who am I?” she repeats in a voice that sounds sly and catlike. “Why don’t you ask your fearless leader, Magnus?”
    Something’s wrong. Really, really wrong. I feel like I’m going to throw up, though I’ve no idea why. “Magnus?” I manage to choke out. “Who . . . is this girl?”
    Magnus swallows hard, running a hand through his hair. When he finally speaks, his voice is hoarse. “Sunny, this is Jane Johnson,” he says. “The vampire council has ruled that she is to become my blood mate.”
    3
    I stare at Magnus, then at the girl—Jane—then at Magnus again. My heart has pretty much bottomed out at this point, hovering somewhere around my kneecaps. The council assigned Magnus a blood mate? My boyfriend is getting a blood mate? My boyfriend is getting drop-dead gorgeous Jane Johnson as a blood mate?
    I guess in the back of my mind I knew this could happen someday. After all, Magnus is immortal. He’s going to live thousands of years on this planet while I, if I’m lucky, probably only have about seventy or eighty left. Many of which I’ll be spending growing old while he remains the spitting image of a hot high school student. At first, people will start calling me a total cougar, saying I’m robbing the cradle and stuff. Then they’ll ask if he’s my son. Grandson eventually.
    At some point we’ll have to break up ’cause it’ll just be too weird for us to be seen together. Either that or go into solitary confinement for a few years. Until, you know, I die. Of course, I sort of always figured he’d be so heartbroken about the whole thing he’d go around wringing his hands and swearing he’ll never love again for all of eternity as he could never find anyone as perfect and wonderful as me.
    But evidently he’s not even going to wait ’til I’m cold in my grave to find someone new. Or, you know, in my grave to begin with.
    “Magnus,” I say through my clenched teeth. “Can we talk alone for a second?”
    Jane frowns, sticking her full lower lip out (totally collagen-injected—I’d bet my life on it) into a full blown pout. “You know,” she whines, “anything you have to say to Magnus can be said in front of his blood mate.”
    I’m about to remind her that technically she’s not anyone’s blood mate yet, least of all my boyfriend’s, and, if I have any breath left in my body, she’ll never live to become one either, but suddenly Rayne chooses that moment to butt into the conversation.
    “Oh my God, Jane. What fabulous nails you have. What is that color?” she asks, grabbing the interloper’s hand.
    I stare at my sister. Can Rayne really be that fascinated by the lesser known shade of this fall’s Opi color collection at the worst moment of my life? But