Free All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page A

the way home from an all-night study session at a friend’s house, and not quite ready to go back to her roommate. She was social and friendly, confident, but possibly a little naïve about the real world.
    In theory, the Vida line was the most famous line of vampirehunters in history and should therefore be the most recognizable. In reality, especially in this generation, there were a lot of blond girls with blue eyes in the world. It meant she could be anyone she needed to be, and while she was lost in that role, she didn’t need to think about anything more than the immediate objective. The person she chose to be didn’t need to have a sister, or a grim duty to fulfill.
    She knew her cheeks would be pink from having driven the last mile with the window down. She let herself shiver as she came in from the cold.
    At seven-thirty in the morning on a Saturday, the atmosphere was subdued. The two young girls seated at a back-corner booth, eating sweet sticky pastries, both felt like bloodbonds, but there was also an older woman, reading the
Boston Globe
and sipping coffee, who probably had no idea that the man behind the counter was a vampire.
    That bloodsucker smiled at Adia, his expression tired but friendly.
    “I’m sorry, but if you’re looking for a place to stay, you’re out of luck.”
    The way he had tossed out that information to a complete stranger suggested that enough people had been bothering him for help that he was getting fed up with it. That was only likely to be the case if individuals hiding from the Rights of Kin were coming to him, which would only happen if he was connected to Nikolas and Kristopher.
    She flashed her own best long-day smile and said, “Actually, I was looking for a cup of coffee. Am I in the wrong place?”
    His expression shifted as he focused his attention, seeming to draw himself together. “Sorry,” he said. “Yes, of course, coffee right away. How do you take it?”
    She glanced at the menu behind the counter, trying to determine what kind of place she was in. Keeping to her pretense, she said, “I don’t care. Something sweet, with a lot of caffeine and a
lot
of sugar.”
    “Starting the day with a kick, I see,” the vampire joked with her as he turned to the espresso machine.
    “I’m normally more of a night person,” she answered. “I got up early to drive a friend to work, and have to hide from my roommate so she won’t drag me to Zumba.”
    He chuckled. She could almost see the gears turning in his head. It was past dawn, the hour when decent vampires normally wanted to sleep, and she could tell he hadn’t had a chance to feed the night before. Here was a cute girl who no one expected home soon, who was willing to chat with strangers … and who, therefore, could probably be persuaded to go somewhere more private. He handed her the coffee, and the smile he turned on her was considerably warmer than the first one had been.
    “I know what you mean,” he said. “My roommates have guests over at all sorts of crazy hours. Here’s your coffee, on the house. My shift’s pretty much—” He cut off, a moment after Adia sensed the aura of the bloodbond who had just walked up behind her. “Matt, it isn’t often you darken my door. Is something wrong?”
    Adia turned, trying to make it look casual. She wasn’t surewhose bloodbond she was facing, but knew that the olive-skinned “young” man was decades older than he appeared. Bloodbonded humans, like vampires, didn’t age.
    Matt lifted a hand to brush sandy brown hair back from his face, and the cuff of his long sleeve pulled back just enough for Adia to see the edge of a scar.
Nikolas’s marks
—a rose, a strand of ivy and Nikolas’s name. She was sure of it. Pure vanity made the vampire carve his symbols into the flesh of his victims. It also made them easy to identify.
    Cold affected bloodbonds less than pure humans, so most of Nikolas’s bloodbonds wore their arms bare in any weather, no matter how