Free The Turning-Blood Ties 1 by Jennifer Armintrout Page A

She told me she’d let me—” I stumbled over the words. “Drink her blood. I paid her.”
    Nathan sighed and shook his head, reaching for one of the notebooks on the table. “What was her name?”
    “Dahlia.” I looked over his shoulder as he flipped through the pages. There were crudely drawn diagrams and notes in the margins. A paper clip held a Polaroid in place at the top of one page. He handed the photo to me.
    “Is this her?”
    I looked at the photo. The woman did look like Dahlia, but a black Betty Page wig covered her red curls. The eyes were the same. Hard and crazy. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed that before. I told him it was her and returned the picture. He stood, cursed and threw it down on the table. I shrank away, surprised at his sudden vehemence.
    “I told you to come here if you needed blood! Why didn’t you come to me?” he shouted.
    “I did! You weren’t home!”
    “You should have waited!” He glared at me and braced himself for my next retort. Raising my voice had calmed me considerably. When I didn’t respond, he swore and turned away, running a hand through his hair.
    “Are you finished?” I asked.
    He sighed angrily. “Yes, dammit. But you should have waited.”
    “Maybe I should have. But I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.” I scooped up the picture.
    “Do you know her?”

    Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer ( http://www.novapdf.com )

    “Who?”
    I rolled my eyes and held up the photo. “Dahlia.”
    When he sat beside me, he seemed to take up more of the couch than before. I didn’t want to give him the impression that I was intentionally trying to be close to him, so I moved to the armchair.
    “I know of her,” he said, examining the notebook. “She’s a very powerful witch.”
    “A witch?” I laughed.
    Nathan stared at me in annoyance before turning his attention back to the notebook. He laced his fingers together and brought them to his mouth, and his eyes glazed in deep concentration. Watching him, I realized why I’d been so disappointed to hear he wasn’t centuries old. Everything about him seemed anachronistic, as though he’d stepped from the Middle Ages into the present. He would look less out of place standing on a blooddrenched battlefield than sitting on a secondhand couch in an apartment full of musty old books. I imagined him charging into battle, face grim with purpose, his strong arms wielding a sword with both hands, his muscular thighs—
    “See something you like?” His voice jolted me from my lusty historical imaginings. I was caught.
    Nathan smiled that arrogant, knowing smile all males produce when their ego has been thoroughly stroked.
    “Sorry, I guess I just zoned out.” Even I wasn’t buying that lame excuse, so I quickly changed the subject. “Why do you think she attacked me?”
    He pushed the book aside. “I have no idea. She’s been trying for years to hook up with different vampires in the area, without much success. She isn’t someone to be trifled with. She has a lot of power.”
    His grave expression worsened my growing unease. I didn’t know just how powerful Dahlia really was, but she’d been violent and dangerous enough without the aid of any spells or tricks. “She was really pissed at me. For taking Cyrus’s blood. Do you think she’s, you know, with him? Or just bat-shit crazy?”
    “I’ve known Cyrus for a long time. He likes people who are easy to manipulate, and she definitely has powers he could exploit.” His brow furrowed as he considered his statement. “But I don’t think he would turn her. He’s not that stupid.”
    “She said it wasn’t time. Or that he said it wasn’t time.” I threw up my arms in frustration.
    “So, how, exactly, do we proceed from here?” I glanced nervously at the window. “Can you kill her? Or is she off-limits because of that human thing?”
    “Off-limits,” he answered automatically. “Besides, I don’t have any reason