Blood Will Tell (Warriors of Ankh #1) Read Online Free Page A

he’d begin to age a couple of years. “Why do I need to look seventeen, eighteen?”
    “ You’re going to befriend her,” his father informed him in his lilting French accent. His words were laced with concern. Uh oh. His father was one of the warriors not too keen on this assignment. Great. “As far as we are aware she has not been told about our or the brethren’s existence for fear she may come to her own conclusions. Although she is not heavily guarded at all times, she is watched. It will be easier for you to get to know her within school grounds.”
    Noah frowned. “You want me to find out… what kind of ‘person’ she is?”
    Cyrus stood up quite abruptly, his eyes as old as the sands of Persia. “Yes. Also…I’m afraid, Noah, that you are going to be bait.”
    Oh great. Bait. Again.
    “ Eden should be nearing the hunger and you know that soul eaters are always drawn to our souls. If she does not know who we are, we are hoping she will be drawn to you. Befriend her, see if she resists your soul… try to uncover whether Merrit’s daughter has her mother’s humanity.”
    “ And if she does?”
    Cassandra and Leonidas, in particular, stiffened at his question. Cyrus looked at them, his lips tightened at their obvious contention. After a moment his eyes flickered up to Noah, blazing with determination.
    “ Then you bring her to me.”
     
    … He’d worked undercover before. He’d been bait before. But he’d never had to develop a relationship with one of them before. Arriving at the school at the beginning of school year, Noah had known that he couldn’t be obvious about it. Cyrus had already told him Eden was a loner. So he’d spent the first couple of weeks developing his own reputation for lonerhood. He’d even turned down a pretty hot cheerleader or two. Not that he would have done anything if the circumstances had been different. He’d been around for seventy years; he’d already been there. Done that.
    Finally, sure that his reputation was cultivated enough to have even reached Eden’s ears, he had approached her in her favourite coffee place. He had to admit he liked it there too. Having watched Eden for the past few weeks, he’d already begun to suspect Cyrus was right about her. Sometimes he’d see her yelling at someone for pasting a poster to her locker door and the next she was defending someone even lower down the school social hierarchy than her. Then there were the moments at the coffee place. He’d watch her reading those manga magazines, or sometimes a paranormal romance with some buff guy on the front, and he found himself transfixed. Eden’s face was an open book. She’d snort at something, her lips tilting up into this childish, mischievous smirk that made him smile. She’d frown when she was obviously annoyed at something she was reading. And if she found something sad, he knew, because she’d shimmy her butt in her seat uncomfortably and blink really fast, pretending she had something stuck in her eye. And those romances… he smiled thinking about it. Eden was a blusher, that was for sure.
    That was all it took. A few weeks of watching Eden read, and he knew he had to give this a chance. He had to prove Eden for Cyrus.
    In the beginning, Eden was on the defensive, but amazingly she seemed to like the fact that Noah was unruffled by her biting personality; the biting personality that disappeared surprisingly quickly once she grew to like you.
    Noah’s reports back to Cyrus had been mostly positive so far… but still inconclusive. Eden had complained to him that her parents were pushing her into having this family party, like a debut, for her and she didn’t want to do it. With having so recently and effectively awoken Eden’s hunger, Noah knew what she was actually talking about was the Awakening Ceremony.
    She was fighting her parents on it.
    That was brave of her. And Cyrus was pleased.
    Noah felt a ‘but’ float across his eyes as Eden once more growled