Free Bad Blood (Cora's Choice #3) by V. M. Black

understand it? You know what he is?”
    “And what you are now . It must be a terrific shock. But you must also be aware of the many benefits—”
    I cut her off. “Yes. I am. But I didn’t choose this. Not really. It chose me.”
    “You didn’t choose cancer, either. Of all the unwanted things in the world, you could do far worse,” she pointed out.
    “I really am cured, then?” I asked. I knew I was, but I didn’t trust my own mind anymore. Not when Dorian’s mere presence could make me believe anything at all.
    “There are only two outcomes, Cora, cured or dead.” Dr. Robeson took my hand again and pushed up my sleeve. Before I could react, she palmed something from the tray on the rolling table next to her and made a quick flicking motion along my lower arm.
    I yelped in pain as the blood welled up from the nick she’d just made. She set the scalpel back on the tray and swiftly took up a small gauze pad, wiping it across my skin.
    The cut was already sealed, only a pale line revealing that there had ever been a wound.
    “What the hell,” I snarled, yanking my arm back as she released me.
    “That is the most definitive test I know,” she said calmly. “If you want your lymphocytes to be checked, I can do that, but we both already know the answer.”
    “I do want them checked,” I said stubbornly.
    “Very well, then.” She dug in the top drawer and came up with a blood collection kit.
    I str aightened my arm at her order, and she pulled the rubberized tourniquet strap tight around it.
    “W hat do I do now?” I said. “I just wanted my old life back. Not this.”
    I didn’t want to confide in Dr. Robeson—I didn’t trust her, not anymore—but I had to talk to someone who wouldn’t think I was crazy, and she was a better candidate than someone like Worth who worked every day under Dorian’s roof.
    She slipped the needle into my vein and popped the collection bottle into place as she pulled the tourniquet loose with the other hand.
    “You do what every cancer survivor does who has lost something precious to them. You mourn what’s gone. And you embrace your new future.” She looked suddenly old, and I knew that she was thinking that my future would be much longer than hers.
    Yeah. If no one killed me first.
    Putting the collection tube aside and pulling out the needle, she continued, “I’ ve been in oncology for a long time, and there are hundreds of patients in Johns Hopkins right now who would give up a great deal more than what you have to gain another year, even another month. They’ve lost breasts, limbs, organs—even had pieces of their brains cut out—just for the chance at a cure. And what have you lost, really?”
    I thought of everything Dorian Thorne offered me—agelessness, health, wealth, and not least of all, himself. Who wouldn’t want that?
    No one, of course. The answer was simple. No one would turn that offer down—because no one could.
    What I’d lost couldn’t be measured, like a hand or an eye. I’d lost my freedom. Myself. I’d given it away, and I’d keep giving it away until I died. Which might be much sooner than Dr. Robeson believed.
    “ I’ll send this out for the tests,” Dr. Robeson said. “You can check your results online, as usual.”
    With a sick feeling in my stomach, I recognized a slight light of envy in her eyes as she looked me over. She wished she was in my place. Knowing the devil’s bargain I’d taken, she still wished that she had the bond.
    She patted my shoulder before stopping at the door. “Congratulations, Cora. Even without the test, I can tell you right now that you have nothing to be concerned about.”
    Nothing, I thought. Nothing at all.

Chapter Nine
     
    “I ’d like to get some stuff from my apartment,” I said as the SUV rolled away from the curb. “If it’s safe, I mean.”
    The clothes Worth had picked out for me were far more stylish and flattering than anything I owned, but they weren’t mine. I wanted my