Free Edie Spence (Book 5): Bloodshifted by Cassie Alexander Page A

wakeful times—or they die. In less than a year the Rose Throne, under her leadership, has come to completely dominate the East Coast.” He swung us into a wide turn. “You do know what she is, right?”
    This time I nodded. “She’s alive.”
    “Like the rest of them aren’t. She can make an infinite amount of blood. Which gives her the ability to create an infinite number of vampires,” he said.
    I nodded again.
    “And that doesn’t worry you?”
    “Should it?” I said. As much as I trusted Anna, an infinite number of vampires did sound bad.
    Jackson wheeled over to the side of the road and parked, putting hazard lights on, then turned so he could look at me. “I’m going to take a big risk here, Edie, because this might be the only time we can get away from them to talk. You were horrified by what you did to Lars, and you didn’t kick Celine out afterward. Hell, you didn’t even make her sleep on the floor. And you tried to save that kid just now—you’re not like one of us and you don’t want to be. So I think that even if you disagree with what I tell you next, you can manage to keep it a secret.”
    I wondered what confession my agreement would bring. “I can’t promise but I can try.”
    “I get the feeling you take your tries more seriously than most.” He gave me a halfhearted smile, and then his expression became worried. “I’m not just with Raven—I’m not just black and white. I’m Grey. With House Grey.”
    “No. No no no—” I backed up physically in the car seat, pressing against the door. Members of House Grey had tried to ruin Anna’s ascension to the Rose Throne’s ruling body. They were some secret organization inside the vampire Houses and Thrones that had their own obscure agenda—one that had it out for Anna and hadn’t minded trying to kill me along the way.
    “If I was going to hurt you, I wouldn’t be telling you about it now, would I?”
    I got my legs up on the seat so that if I had to I could kick him back. “Why are you telling me at all?”
    “I know you’ve had some run-ins with us in the past, and I’m sorry for that. But we had reasons for doing what we did. Anna’s messing up the game—the field, the ecosystem, whatever you want to call it. It’s not supposed to be like this for us. There’s only supposed to be scattered pockets of vampires, groups in urban areas, loners out in the rural ones. We’re conniving and we’re jealous as hell, and that keeps us self-policing. And when that doesn’t work, House Grey steps in and starts killing to keep the numbers down.” The sound of cars driving by at speed five feet away from us punctuated every other word of his.
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    “Because I want you to understand. House Grey isn’t your enemy, Edie. We’re here to maintain balance. Anna’s not the first living vampire, you know. One comes along every few hundred years, blood runs in the streets, and we’re almost discovered—or we are discovered, and hunted down. Back in the day our wars could be written off as plagues or genocides—but the world has changed now, there’s too much technology. We won’t get a second chance to hide this time around when things explode—and if we fight, we’ll take a fair chunk of humanity out with us.”
    “But she’s not like that—she’s my friend—” I protested, shaking my head.
    “You’re right, she seems to be. But there might come a time when you’re the only thing standing between her and her vampire army. I just want you to think about that.”
    I hugged my folded-up knees, trying not to think at all. “How can you claim that House Grey is on the side of humanity?”
    “I know it’s hard to believe, but we are. Or at least on the side where vampires stay the same. Vampires kill a few thousand people a year, or a few tens of thousands. It’s less than heart disease or cancer. But an army of vampires, led by a dictator, no matter how benevolent, has to feed. And God