Free The Chosen Ones by Lori Brighton Page B

even now, watching, waiting?  
    “And humans?” I asked. “How many
are there?”
    “Many more than beautiful ones.”
He leaned down and reached into the brush, picking up my dagger when I’d
thought it had been lost for good. “You might outnumber them, but your people
are kept in compounds; they don’t know how to fight.”
    Annoyed, I snatched the dagger
from his hand. “I learned.”  
    “Learned what?” He laughed. “Do
you think you could truly fight a beautiful one and come out the winner?”
    “I killed one,” I hissed,
sliding the dagger into the sheath at my thigh.
    “Did you? Or was it mere luck?”
    I clenched my teeth, refusing to
reply. No doubt Will had told him the truth about how I had killed the
beautiful one. An embarrassed flush burned my cheeks. I felt betrayed in some
way, although I wasn’t sure why. Had they laughed at me, mocked me? The silly
girl who actually thought she could survive on her own. Will’s men had made it
no secret that they thought I was worthless. And a few of the women at camp had
been sending me glares, making me wonder if they were jealous of the time Will
spent with me. Or maybe they thought I was holding them back as well. Just
yesterday a brown-haired mouse of a woman had accused me of taking too much
food when I’d barely eaten my share.
    “Why did you pick me?” I
whispered so low a normal human wouldn’t have heard. But he wasn’t human.
    “I didn’t pick you.”
    I parted my lips to argue, but when
I thought back to that day I realized he had actually tried to avoid me. Bacchus
had insisted I go to the castle. By not picking me, had Thanatos actually been
trying to save me? I flushed, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the idea. He
owed me nothing; we didn’t know each other, weren’t related, yet he’d saved me,
and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know why.
    “Bacchus…”
    “I tried to keep him away from
you, but your scent was too strong.”
    I slid him a glance under my
lashes. “And my blood smells ready to you?”
    He smiled again, knowing I was
embarrassed by the question. “You have a complex scent. You and your siblings.
It’s hard to tell if you’re ready or not.” He shrugged. “It’s been known to
happen with a few.”
    I frowned, uneasy. “You know I
have siblings?”
    “Yes, we can smell the
similarities in the blood.”
    Great. If he knew, he could use
that against me. I pushed aside my fear, not daring to go down that dark road when
I had so much to accomplish. I needed to learn as much as possible, and truth
was Thanatos seemed to be willing to divulge when others hadn’t. “And you said
we are complex?”
    “Your scent is almost…hidden.”
He paused, staring up at the dark sky as if trying to remember, or understand. “But
for some reason it was stronger that day.”
    I frowned, wondering why, and
then it hit me. He could smell wounds, and blood. “I cut myself on a thorn. It
was bleeding but I’d covered it with my sleeve.”
    He nodded. “Most likely the
reason.”
    One tiny scratch and he’d been
able to smell the blood. The realization was disconcerting to say the least. I
glanced toward the trees. If there were beautiful ones in those woods, would
they be able to smell the blood on my hand even now? Thane certainly had.
    “Why did you leave the group?”
he asked.  
    I snapped my gaze back toward
him. “Why do you have the scar?” I hadn’t meant to ask, but with him staring at
me it was the first thing that came to mind. Besides, I’d rather not answer his
question. I wasn’t about to admit my plan to help the others escape.
    He didn’t seem offended, his
gaze as unreadable as always. “It’s a marking so they know who I am.”
    “They?”
    “The beautiful ones.”
    He said beautiful ones as if he
wasn’t one of them, as if he didn’t pick us for slaughter every Sunday of every
month. As if he didn’t feed off blood. “Who are you?”
    “A dhampir.”
    I frowned, confused. “What