Blood Rules Read Online Free Page B

believed it’d save them from the ills of the new world. Her faith was based on the fact that monsters seemed to have immunity to the mosquito epidemics and everything else that dwindled the earth’s numbers, and I was one of her lucky lambs. That was her idea of a cure.”
    Even back when he’d been speaking to Mariah on friendly terms, he’d never told her all this before. He’d recently had chats with others in the community, but they hadn’t killed Abby.
    Mariah opened her mouth, as if to offer compassion, but he capped off the chatter.
    â€œOf course, my creator left me with nothing more than a near-useless pamphlet that described nothing but the joys of vampirism and not a whole lot else. So, if you do go out there, Mariah, I expect you’ll get nothing but that, too, yet without the slim paperwork.”
    He walked off, but she followed, the scent of her heated skin growing stronger as she caught up. The link between them flared with her nearness.
    Overcome for a piercing moment, Gabriel reached out, grasped her shirt.
    A slight tearing sound offered the only protest.
    Control, he thought. He had about as much of it as she did when they were together. They drove each other’s passions up, and that was no good for either of them.
    He let go of her, almost as if in violent disgust, and her eyes went shiny with what had to be oncoming tears.
    Sadness. He knew it well by now. Being here in the New Badlands had schooled him in most of the emotions he’d lost upon becoming a vampire. He wished he didn’t see sorrow so often in Mariah, though she’d done so much to deserve it, especially with Abby.
    The name wandered through Gabriel, as if it’d strayed from the center of him long ago. Thing was, it hadn’t fully deserted all of him yet.
    Would it ever?
    He held up his hands, showing Mariah that he wasn’t going to touch her again. She looked . . . crushed.
    The part of him that was still hopelessly addicted to helping her made him say, “There’re solutions other than a cure, you know.”
    She swallowed, as if gathering herself. “Are you the one lying now, Gabriel?”
    Nothing to say to that, so he kept himself shut right up.
    She sighed. “What if there is a cure? Wouldn’t I be irresponsible in ignoring the possibility?”
    It felt as if his chest were being pried open, and he knew that he was connecting to her emotions again through the imprint. They shared so much, and even the vague dream of a cure made him yearn just as she did.
    Then it hit him: Because of the imprint, would a cure affect him, too?
    He brought himself to continue walking away from her. The only vampire cure he’d ever heard of was when the death of a maker resulted in the return of humanity for a vamp.
    Mariah gave him space, then followed at a distance. Their imprint connection faded, but beats of her vital signs still possessed him. Sometimes he thought that the echo of her was the only thing that made him feel alive.
    Shit, he hated this dependence on someone else’s life to feel like he had one of his own.
    They arrived in the main area, a cavern with stalactites and stalagmites stabbed with beige and brown artistry. Among them, three visz screens silently flashed pictures from some hidden cameras outside. Otherwise, the area was stark, with a few empty aluminum casks serving as chairs while others, filled with turtlegrape alcohol, lined the right side of the room like a bar. During the rushed move here, Pucci had found the casks near an abandoned semi-truck filled with black-market goods. The bleached bones of smugglers had littered the sand around the seemingly ancient, gutted vehicle.
    Pucci often drank the turtlegrape, but at the moment, everyone, including him, was soberly waiting in the room: Hana. Chaplin. Sammy Ramos, a bitten were-creature whose orange hemp clothing matched the hues of his skin whenever he shifted into Gila monster form. Right