Blood Rules Read Online Free Page A

what he was after Stamp had made him face it.
    A vampire. A monster who’d never stop wondering if there was more to him than just hunger.
    As Mariah’s boot steps echoed against the walls and twined through him, he braced himself, his baser instincts urging him to turn around and grab her so he could bury his face against her skin. It happened all the time when she was around, his fangs prodding his gums, his gaze going a deep red. But now, with how he’d tried to give her the peace, with him being inside her mind . . . ?
    Gabriel fisted his hands and fought his urges.
    He even won himself back a bit, until she came to within about ten feet of him. Tremors lined his veins as he felt that link he’d forged with her when they’d lain together and she’d shown him that maybe he wasn’t all monster, that maybe he still did have it in him to be human.
    If he was the very definition of what everyone thought a monster was, it’d be much easier to turn his back on her right now.
    Her voice flooded him. “Did you hear me and Chaplin talking out there?”
    â€œDoes it matter?” Her earthy scent was crazing him, but he told himself she was toxic.
    That helped, and he finally turned around to see her standing in the midst of the solar-battery lights edging the tunnel.
    Something like emotion tumbled through Gabriel as her body rhythms pulled at him. She was so young, only twenty-three in human years, yet only a few years old as a newer, uncontrolled were-creature. She looked innocent, like what people would’ve called a waif, with her red hair sawed to her jaw by a knife, her wide, apologetic green eyes. But, then again, she stood like an outlaw, her slim, tall body stiff, her arms at her sides, her hands hovering near the holsters covering her torn, laced-up trousers. Her baggy white shirt was ripped at the shoulders, too—evidence of the latest change that’d almost consumed her.
    Her heartbeat played like confused music, and that was what got him the most. He’d heard the same haunting tune in Abby before she’d left him in the hubs, disappearing one night. He’d gone off in search of her, never knowing what she was. He hadn’t even known about Mariah or the rest of the community, either, seeing as were-creatures had their powers only when they underwent the change.
    They hid themselves so well.
    Obviously sensing his desire to get away from her, Mariah lowered her gaze, and it struck Gabriel hard, because though he despised what she’d done, she practically cried out to be saved.
    He almost laughed at that. Mariah, a vicious werewolf in need of rescue.
    He made himself talk to her. “Are you so at the end of your rope that you’re willing to pin your hopes on rumors of a cure out there?”
    â€œI said as much.”
    â€œThen you won’t mind my adding that pursuing a false dream is an epically terrible idea.”
    â€œAt least it’d take me away from the community.”
    Gabriel allowed himself a chopping laugh. “That’s Pucci talking. He’d like nothing more than to get you away from here, but did you hear him when he said that if Stamp caught you, you’d be a liability?”
    â€œI’d never reveal where we’re hiding now.”
    â€œNot easily.” He’d give her that. If anything, Mariah was loyal. She’d lied to him, as well as many others, but she’d done it out of protective instinct for herself and her community. She was a first-rate deceiver, yet he doubted that’d be enough to bolster her if Stamp ever got hold of her.
    â€œAll I want,” she said, her tone strangled, “is to keep us safe, Gabriel. If that means I have to chase some wild dream, I’d consider it.”
    â€œSupposed cures aren’t any kind of answer.” He decided to push his point, then leave. “When I was made a vampire, I was converted by a crusader who turned people because she