Free The Chosen by Jenika Snow

right. He didn’t really like the females going at his vein.
    Like he said, he could be a real bastard, but his reasons were his own.
    Irena was different, though. They had been going at it for a while now, and even though she never had taken his blood, that didn’t mean he couldn’t offer it. His cell rang, breaking the awkward silence that had descended.
    “I have to take this. I’ll look you up later.” He felt like a huge prick for the way he acted, but he knew she had other guys, human and Blood Breed alike. “Hey, Aleksei, what’s doin’?”
    “I need you and Milo at my apartment, now. No time to drive—
    mist your asses over here.”
    His voice was guttural and distorted. Aleksei was always the calm brother, the level-headed one. He never asked Luca to mist anywhere and never with someone else. There had to be a major problem.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I. Can’t. Control. Myself. Much. Longer.” The words were broken, and then the line went dead.
    He got dressed quickly and threw open his bedroom door, shouting Milo’s name. One second he was pulling a black tee over his 60
    Jenika Snow
    head, and the next Milo was in front of him, no shirt on and the fly undone on his jeans.
    “What?”
    Luca could smell sex and blood all over his brother. “Aleksei needs us now. He wants me to mist us to his apartment. Says he can’t control himself for much longer or some shit like that.”
    Milo whistled under his breath and buttoned his fly before grabbing the white T-shirt Luca threw at him.
    “Where’s Aniya?” They walked side by side as they made their way down the stairs.
    “She’s at the club.”
    Good. Luca didn’t want their little sister to be alone, and since she was at the club there would be plenty of Breeds to watch over her.
    “What about the female?”
    “She’s not my female. She’s just some Breed that has been after me for a while now. She’ll be asleep for as long as I want her to be.”
    Luca sometimes wished he had his brother’s gift —the ability to control any being’s consciousness. He could make someone stay asleep for days—weeks, even. Although, his gift of misting came in handy. He could teleport anywhere he wanted as long as he had already been there. Needless to say, he made sure to travel all over the world. Unfortunately, he could only mist himself and one other person at a time.
    At the bottom of the stairs, they walked over to the fireplace. Luca tapped on a brick, and a section of the wall opened up to reveal knives and guns of various sizes. They strapped as many weapons on themselves as they could and closed the hidden compartment. They didn’t go anywhere without being strapped. Luca placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder and closed his eyes, picturing Aleksei’s home. The room around them became fuzzy, the image changing into their brother’s apartment. The living room was empty, but he heard two heartbeats through the wall.

    The Chosen: A Tale of the Blood Breed
    61
    They stood outside Aleksei’s closed bedroom door and looked at each other before nodding in unison and opening the door in. Aleksei stood in the corner, naked and fully changed into his primal self. His fists clenched and unclenched as his eyesight was trained on the bathroom door. The fast, erratic human heartbeat came from behind the bathroom door, clearly full of fear. Luca inhaled deeply, catching the scent of aroused female and male lust coating the air. His eyes went back to Aleksei as he took in his brother’s form again.
    His brother’s eyes were completely black, and his body was primed and lethal. He could see the sharp tips of his fangs pressed against his bottom lip. Aleksei’s lips curled back in a snarl as he braced himself for an attack. Luca turned his head to where Aleksei’s gaze was. Milo made his way toward the bathroom door.
    “Aleksei, what’s going on? Are you okay?” He held his hands in front of him and walked slowly forward. The only time he’d seen a