All Just Glass Read Online Free Page B

else.”
    She was glad her voice was steady. She
did
believe her words but was still pleased that her voice didn’t betray that her heartbeat was rapid with fear of the moment when she would have to follow through with the promise.
    “Not all of us are killers,” Nissa snapped. She wasn’t running yet only because she didn’t know she needed to. She probably thought she could convince Adia to change her mind.
    “Oh?” Adia answered, letting her anger into her voice. People became more involved in emotional arguments than calm ones; she wanted Nissa’s guard down. “And what about your brothers—you know, the ones Sarah is staying with? The ones teaching her how to
hunt.
” Anger was a double-edged sword, of course. The emotion was real as she spat the last word. As she continued, she sensed that Zachary was circling to slip in behind Nissa from the opposite door. “In fact, what about
you
? You’re here at SingleEarth. I can feel how weak you are. Tell me you’ve never in your century and a half taken a human life.”
    Nissa hesitated, as Adia had known she would. Adiacouldn’t sense death on her, but it wasn’t possible for a vampire to live so long and never kill.
    “Really,” Adia added, “please do. I would love to believe it.”
    Were those words honest? She didn’t know.
    Nissa yelped as Zachary reached her and grabbed her wrists. He was better with raw energy than Adia was, so she relinquished her hold over the vampire’s power.
    “How can you live with yourself?” Adia asked her, wondering if there was any grain of similarity between them. Nissa was the one who had changed Nikolas into a vampire. Adia did not know the circumstances of that decision, and she didn’t care. Maybe Nissa hadn’t known what Nikolas would turn into then, but how could she do nothing now?
    Defiantly, Nissa snapped, “I have my brothers.”
    Nissa tried to wrench her wrists out of Zachary’s grip, and he shifted, putting one hand over the power center in her throat.
    “I can kill you this way,” Zachary said flatly. “Adia and I agreed that out of respect for SingleEarth, we would rather let you live, but that is assuming you do not give us trouble. We need you to come with us now.”
    Nissa became very still. “You’re not allowed. Not here.”
    “That was then,” Zachary answered. “This is now. We—”
    A bloodbond blindsided both of them, attacking while Adia’s attention was focused on Nissa. The girl probably weighed ninety pounds, but she fought in a suicidal whirlwind of shouting and fury that made it obvious her stature was not an indication of her strength.
    She made a deep slash on Zachary’s arm with an X-Actoknife. He had to let go of Nissa to defend himself. Adia made a grab at the vampire when Zachary dropped her, but she was too slow.
    The bloodbond shouted, “Go!”
    Nissa disappeared.
    “I recognize you,” Zachary said as the bloodbond fell into a defensive crouch, the knife in one hand. The mad assault had obviously been meant to distract them from Nissa, and it had worked. Now she was waiting for them to make the next move. “Heather. You’re Kaleo’s pet.”
    Adia hadn’t recognized the face, but she knew the name. She wasn’t sure how old Kaleo’s favorite bloodbond was, but clearly she was trained well enough to leap in front of hunters’ blades to protect one of Kaleo’s fledglings. Of course, bloodbonds tended to be fanatically loyal like that.
    “Better a pet than a mindless tool,” Heather spat. “How
dare
you threaten Nissa?”
    At a glance from Zachary, Adia moved forward. The action was a feint, but it was enough to draw Heather’s attention. The instant the bloodbond struck out with the knife, Zachary swept in behind her. He caught her wrist in one hand, controlling the knife, and wrapped his other hand around the front of her throat as he had with Nissa. The following ripple of power slapped Adia like a burst of frigid air, and then Heather went limp and the