Broken Blood Read Free Page A

have one without the other. In fact, I already do.”
    “Are you trying to tell me you’re a Werewolf?” I asked, disbelief coating my words.
    “I’m telling you I carry the necessary DNA structure that allows me the mental capacity to handle something like a bond.”
    I shook my head, struggling to keep up. “How?” I asked.
    But he didn’t answer. He leaned away, hands stuffed into his pockets, his voice as matter-of-fact as if he were lecturing to a classroom of eager students. “The wolf gene must be present in order for the bond to happen. On both sides. But my cells are considered weak compared to yours, for instance. I’ll need a strong host to connect with—and to show me the ropes.” His grin reminded me of a crocodile’s.
    My stomach flipped and I was sincerely glad it was already empty. “You can’t just take it or shove your way in. And if you think I’ll just hand my mind over, you’re wrong,” I began.
    “No, it has to be freely given. Olivia explained all of that.”
    “Olivia? You’re working ... with her?” The pounding in my temples intensified. Maybe I’d been in here too long. I didn’t understand a single thing about my world any more.
    “Working is a strong word. She pushed a little hard and we’ve had to offer her a respite. See for yourself,” he said, pulling back the curtain separating my bed from the next.
    In the adjacent bed, wrapped securely in a pile of blankets and sheets, eyes closed, breathing even, Olivia slept.
    Wires protruded from the edges of the linens, trailing up to the screens and machines parked beside her, silently reporting her vitals. Her face was barely visible under the sheet, but even from here I could see the dark circles ringing her sockets like bull’s eye bruises. Her hand was curled around the blanket, clutching it tightly as if, even asleep, a chill seeped in. She’d lost weight so that her already slender fingers were thin and bony. Frail.
    She was clearly unwell. And being used for something other than justice or judicial trials for her crimes—which is what the rest of the Hunter world assumed would happen once she’d been caught all those weeks ago. Olivia had, along with her deceased son—my cousin Miles—made and almost killed an entire pack of hybrid Hunter-Werewolves. Why wasn’t she in prison? And conscious?
    “What did you do to her?” I asked.
    “Me? Nothing,” Gordon said. But his voice was deceivingly light with the lie. “Not for lack of trying, though.”
    Olivia rolled over and muttered unintelligible words. Her eyes never opened but her shoulders thrashed violently several times—hard enough to wake a normal person—and I knew she was in a deeper sleep than just a good night’s rest. Along with the monitor wires, an IV line attached to a clear bag of fluid disappeared underneath the blankets. Whatever Gordon was doing to her was taking a serious toll. Possibly something was being fed to her—like my own dinnertime cocktails.
    Olivia shifted again and the blanket shifted. Her arm fell loosely open against her side, revealing track marks left by multiple needles along her forearm. The scars left a nasty trail from just above her wrist all the way up to the crook in her elbow where I spotted the IV line taped in place. For a moment, I wondered if Gordon was simply keeping her under like he’d done with me. Maybe the tracks on her arm were evidence the IV had been moved several times to accommodate a blown vein or some discomfort. But then I noticed her sallow complexion and stark-blue veins, and I knew.
    Blood. Gordon was taking her blood.
    “You said she’s working with you?” I asked, still too muddled from the tranquilizer to read between the lines of whatever this was.
    “Yes, until she collapsed two days ago.” His features hardened. “Not that it’s done any good. I still don’t have the bond.”
    I stared at Olivia with a growing sense of dread. Solitary confinement, drugs, heartache—all of it