Free Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) by Heather Hildenbrand

eyes
that didn’t match the fierceness of his features. It felt like an
invasion of privacy, like the night I’d spied on them from the
rooftop at Wood Point and seen them kissing. It was the first night
I’d realized Kane and Vera had a history. One that involved hard
choices and separate paths that only recently seemed to have
crossed again.
    “ It was good to see you
again, Professor,” I said, shifting toward the end of the bed and
the exit beyond.
    “ Wait,” he said. I froze.
He stared at Vera, but now his gaze seemed far away, outside this
room. “CHAS called me in today.”
    It was not what I expected him to say.
A ripple of unease ran through me. “What did they want?” I
asked.
    “ To know about you. Well,
you as a Werewolf. And about … biting Alex.”
    I swallowed. Not good. “What did you
tell them?”
    He rubbed at his face, the side
without the scars. When he finally met my eyes, he looked
apologetic. “I told them the truth. I can’t do anything
else.”
    “ Yeah. I know,” I
said.
    “ What will they do?” Wes
asked.
    “ I don’t know. Their minds
seemed pretty made up even before I started talking,” Kane replied.
He frowned at me. “They’re out for blood, Tara. And Gordon Steppe
isn’t one to let up until he gets what he wants.”
    “ I understand,” I said
quietly. It didn’t matter that Kane wasn’t gunning for me too—which
was a surprise considering his general hatred of all things furry
and four-legged. His testimony of the facts would be enough
ammunition against me.
    I hesitated and then mumbled, “Thank
you.” I didn’t know exactly what for but Kane nodded as if he
did.
    “ How’s Alex?” he asked. “I
haven’t been in there yet.”
    “ The same. Unconscious but
stable.” I braced myself for whatever came next. Condemnation.
Accusation. Kane had watched me bite Alex. He’d seen the malice in
me, the intention to hurt.
    Again, a pack’s worth of concern for
me leaked through the bond.
    “ He did it to save your
life, you know.”
    My head came up. My brows knitted.
“Did what?”
    “ Called me. The team. He
said he knew you wouldn’t stop until you got Olivia. Said he was
doing it for the same reasons. But I knew it was you. That he
wouldn’t stop until he got you out. He’d do it over again, too so
don’t blame yourself. No one could’ve known …” He trailed off, his
expression torn.
    I appreciated his attempt to ease my
guilt, even if it did seem to war with his reflex reaction of
condemning me, a Werewolf, for attacking a Hunter.
    Still, it didn’t excuse Alex’s
betrayal. “He should’ve trusted me,” I said finally.
    Kane didn’t answer. He stared stonily
at Vera.
    I walked to the door, my hand on the
knob when he spoke again. “It’s not you.”
    “ What’s not
me?”
    “ He doesn’t trust himself.
If he lost you ...”
    I caught sight of his expression as he
looked from me back to Vera. He didn’t finish. He didn’t have
to.

Chapter Five
     
     
    Swirls of tinted water, blue, yellow,
and every shade of green in between, washed down the tub drain.
Next to me, Cambria wrung out her wet hair and wrapped it up into a
towel on top of her head, turban style. I peeled off the rubber
gloves I’d worn to keep the dye from staining my hands and tossed
them into the trashcan. Cambria followed me into my bedroom,
rubbing the towel against her scalp.
    “ This is going to be
epic,” she said, flipping her hair back and pulling a comb through
it. “What do you think?” she asked.
    I shook my head. Cambria’s dye jobs
were something of a trademark but this particular color choice was
a lot even for her. Instead of a few thick streaks to frame her
face, she’d dyed the entire top half of her head neon yellow. The
bottom half was blue. Electric blue.
    “ Cam, it’s …”
    “ I know. Like I said,
epic.”
    “ Exactly. Does, um, Derek
know you did this?”
    “ Not yet.” She grinned. “I
can’t wait to see the look on his