Broken Read Online Free

her, and it was there on her face for everyone to see. A non-scarlet letter that was bound to spell out what she’d become lately.
    Claudius tilted his head, a vampire trait she’d seen in all of them. “What did it feel like . . . stringing me up and slicing into me with that mental power of yours? I must say, from a purely impartial point of view, it was an impressive show. You would have been quite a soldier in the Underground I helped to cultivate.”
    Great. Complimented on her methods by a master vampire. Dawn was officially awesome.
    “My actions were what I felt was necessary at the time,” she said. “And it helped you to get captured. I can’t say that the end didn’t justify the means.”
    “If you mean to get every last answer from me, I would suspect you haven’t come to any end.”
    Cute. “Then Costin’s going to get what he wants from you.”
    “Maybe so. In time. But perhaps the time will be costly, and it will allow my Underground to mobilize against you. Perhaps my community will come for me, and they will track me here, where they can crush you during the witching hour, when most humans are too asleep to notice.”
    “Eloquent,” Dawn said. “But, again, I suspect you don’t believe in that scenario one bit.”
    The Friends—some of whom could be slightly less ruthless than Dawn, even though their spiritual state of grace didn’t allow them to kill—were getting restless. Dawn could see their invisible pressure pushing against the vampire, as if to impede his breathing. Even though Claudius was undead, the maneuver was working. The dragon’s line of vampires had bodies that functioned like humans in many ways, but during the exchange of blood and loss of a soul, something had happened to change their composition, their matter, spinning them into beyond human instead of just the norm. She knew this because she was familiar with Costin’s shared body.
    She slid off her stool, her boots hitting the floor with a soft thud. A good cop would ease down with Claudius, begin again. Reset.
    “You could ingratiate yourself with me by giving up a freebie,” she said. “What do you say? You start off small, telling me something like . . . Well, say, why London seems to attract Undergrounds more than the average place. With an answer to that, I’ll be in a much better mood. Maybe I’ll even ask the Friends who’re binding you to let up a bit.”
    Claudius shrugged, like this one answer was some kind of olive branch he didn’t mind shedding. “I wish I had an explanation, but vampires aren’t sages. When we exchange blood and lose our souls, we aren’t given a secret handshake and the guide to solving all the world’s puzzles.”
    Unfortunately, that made sense. Not even Costin was all knowing. In the beginning, Dawn had thought that just because these creatures were older than the hills, they’d have more of a clue than the rest of the general population. But no. Besides, if any of the blood brothers had formulated theories over the years about global warming or the end of days, they probably wouldn’t have shared, seeing as all the dragon’s progeny had drifted apart, growing greedy and paranoid about takeovers, and cutting themselves off from interacting with each other when possible. Mihas and Claudius seemed to be the exception.
    Dawn said, “You can’t even tell me why you and Mihas settled here?”
    Claudius shook his head, and it almost seemed like he wanted to add a feisty little tsking sound, too.
    “I suppose,” Dawn added, “that would veer disturbingly close to talking about the dragon, wouldn’t it. Maybe your big master just wanted to settle here in London, along with you and Mihas. Maybe he had the same plans and whims as the so-called fictional count in Dracula did. He has a real thing for this area, and you guys inherited that from him.”
    “You assume the dragon is with our Underground, and you know what they say about people who assume.”
    “It makes an