Broken Blood Read Free

felt so full of thoughts. Eat your heart out, Albert Einstein. So, I was more surprised than anyone at how much I’d hated the void left behind when the bond vanished. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard another thought inside my head besides my own. I missed it. The emptiness made life seem less urgent. Like everything happened through slow-motion.
    Nearby, the sleeping man shifted and snorted before settling again. I raised a brow but Gordon wasn’t in the explaining mood. He barely glanced over before returning to the topic at hand.
    “I know all about your bond with them,” Gordon said. “It’s a handy tool. And, to be frank, a mysterious one. I’ve spent months working with the best researchers trying to understand it, to develop it.”
    “Develop it?” I repeated, a nervous swirl in my stomach. “For what?”
    “To take it for myself, of course.”
    He paused. I had a feeling he wanted some sort of response, maybe to gauge my reaction to his admission. If he was expecting surprise, he was mistaken. A need for power was nothing new for the enemies I’d faced. A smug smile tugged at my lips at the thought of his failure. Clearly I was Plan B. And since we were having this conversation at all, Plan A hadn’t worked out.
    Given all of that, I decided on sarcasm. “How’s that working out for you?”
    “Getting closer,” he said quietly, his eyes gleamed where they burned into mine. “I had it working for a moment there but then George’s remaining connection to you severed what little hold I could gain.”
    “Wait, you tried bonding ... with me?” I crossed my arms. “I think I’d know if you were in my head.”
    His smile tilted into something ominous. “Precisely. You know I’m right, because you’ve already heard me.”
    I stared back at him, utterly confused as he went on.
    “In fact, I even warned you before you came to the warehouse that night. Look around you. This building you’re being kept inside, it’s not a deep, dark hiding place somewhere off the grid. We’re right where no one expects us. Right in plain sight.”
    I didn’t need to follow the sweep of his arms to see that he was right. I was sitting in an infirmary of sorts, but it was large and state of the art with its lab equipment and high-tech machines lining the counters across the room.
    “Where are we?” I asked, suspicious I already knew.
    “We’re in DC. In CHAS headquarters. Well, the lab and offices underneath but still. There’s a public entrance. We’re easily accessible. I tried to tell you.”
    My eyes narrowed as I tried to understand what he could mean—and then the memory returned and his words wormed their way into a place of horrific understanding. But Gordon didn’t wait for me to process it; he enjoyed the shock far too much. He leaned in, his smile electric as he added, “The best place to hide is in place sight.”
    I let out a cry but it sounded like a muffled choking.
    “Shall I get you some water?” Gordon asked.
    I glared at him. “That was your voice in my ... All that time I thought I could hear—” I broke off, unwilling to share it out loud. Especially with him. My cheeks burned—with anger and humiliation. I thought I’d bonded with Alex. And it had been Gordon.
    A wolf in sheep’s clothing, I’d heard just before he’d grabbed me. He’d been telling me it was him, warning me of the trap all along. And I hadn’t understood.
    “Relax. Your attachment to George kept shoving me out. I didn’t get much. It was sort of a one-way radio. I’ve been working for weeks to get it back but I can’t quite seem to achieve it, not alone at least. Which is why I need to try it again, this time with your participation.”
    I snorted. “I would think your researchers would have filled you in on the obvious by now. First rule of bonding: you have to be a wolf.”
    “Lucky for me, carrying the gene and taking the animal’s true form are two different things. These days, I can