Blood Winter Read Free

hung loose to her waist and was curled and teased. Her full lips sparkled with gloss. She looked, in a word, sexy. Sexy as hell. Max glanced at Tyler. He stared with widening eyes, his mouth dropping open.
    Men. They were so easy.
    She looked back at Tory. “You know you aren’t going hooking on the Vegas Strip, right? You may want to tone it down. We’re trying not to attract a lot of attention.”
    “You may be, but I’m not,” Tory said, jabbing her thumbs into her back pockets so her full breasts thrust out. Tyler nearly choked. “You want information. Boys see a hot body, and they do nothing but talk. Their brains drop to their dicks, and they get diarrhea of the mouth.”
    Max couldn’t argue with that. If she needed proof, there was Tyler. She shook her head. “Your mother is going to love this. She’ll kick my ass.”
    Tory tossed her hair. Her face was rounded and sweet. Camouflage. Max was pretty sure that at nineteen, the girl could chew up most people and spit them out without breaking a sweat.
    “You know, the world doesn’t revolve around you,” Tory said.
    “Are you sure, Buttercup?” Max drawled, clamping down on her irritation. “You want to go into town, but you’re not going anywhere without me. That pretty much means I’m the center of your universe tonight, doesn’t it?”
    Tory’s cheeks flushed red, and her eyes snapped with fury. She dropped her hands to her sides, her fingers curling into fists. “Yeah? Well, you need my help, too—besides, once I talk Giselle into making me a Shadowblade, I’ll be able to do anything I want, whenever I want, just like you.”
    Max met her niece’s gaze for a long moment and then glanced at Tyler. His body was chiseled in stone. She could feel his emotions flaring hot and wild. It had been just over a month since Niko had died, adding to the too-long tally of Shadowblades and Sunspears Horngate had lost since the Change—when the Guardians had flooded the world with magic. Both Max and Tyler knew that those supernatural warriors needed to be replaced in order to protect the covenstead, but the reality was too much to handle right now. The grief was still too raw.
    Abruptly, Max swigged down the last of the Ugly Juice and stood. “Let’s go,” she said, and led Tory out of the dining commons. Spike trotted behind them.
    Tory kept abreast of Max despite her aunt’s fury. It was actually impressive. Most humans cowered around an aroused Blade, much less a full Prime like herself. But then again, Tory was a burning ball of anger and resentment. Fear was a foreign concept to her.
    Max slowed, reaching down to scratch Spike’s ears. “You ready to give up going out during the day?” she asked. “Because Shadowblades fry—literally—in the daylight. Poof! Burn to ash in a matter of seconds. Or Giselle could make you a Sunspear, but they have their own problems. The dark poisons them. Sometimes slowly, but within an hour or so if they don’t get inside.”
    “You just don’t want to give me the chance to be like you,” Tory said, stepping in front of Max with her hands on her hips. “You still hate Giselle for turning you, and you think just because you don’t want to be a Shadowblade, nobody else will, either.”
    Max considered the accusation. Six months ago, there might have been some truth to it. But things had changed. Max had changed. She no longer resented being turned. She liked what she was. It allowed her to protect the people she cared about.
    Except for Niko.
    A worm of grief wriggled through her heart. At least she could protect them better than if she were still human. And if Tory were turned, the girl could at least protect herself. Still, Max doubted she had the slightest clue what being a Shadowblade really entailed.
    “You won’t be able to have kids,” she said. “So you’ll want to think about having one before you’re turned. You have to eat a minimum of twenty thousand calories a day, more if you get into a