More Than Blood Read Online Free Page A

there, bloodsucker.” Raife continued to smile, folding his arms over his massive chest. The stranger’s face was impassive with the exception of the rings of seething red that writhed dangerously in his eyes.
    Kel shimmered between them, her back to Raife. “’Nuff.”
    Her voice was muffled behind her hand, and she winced as one sharp canine sliced her lip. The resulting cursing was just as muffled.
    Shit. Raife would tease her mercilessly thanks to the freaking fangs. It wasn’t enough that she’d climbed the hunk tower in front of her entire crew, but she’d scored a set of mating fangs too. This night couldn’t get any worse.
    The stranger frowned down at her, his burning gaze dropping to brush over her hand clamped over her mouth and then lifting back to see what she hoped was a murderous expression on her face. His frown darkened, but the blood-red halo circling his pupils had faded. With a sigh, he replaced his blades and reached for her, then shimmered them a distance away, his shoulders angled to hide her from the eyes of both the cleanup crew and Raife.
    One broad hand reached up to pull hers away, and Kel instinctively jerked away from him. What the hell did he want? She certainly wasn’t going to start kissing him again. Her new fangs would probably shred him, not that he didn’t deserve it.
    “Let me see.” His voice was harsh and low.
    Wanting to grind her teeth with irritation but thinking better of it, Kel lowered her hand. His large warm hands cupped the sides of her face, and his thumbs lifted her upper lip to reveal the lengthened canines. The tips of his thumbs slid firmly over the base of the long teeth, and Kel felt a shiver tingle over her, tightening her gums.
    “Easy.” His voice was low, a mere vibration in his chest but oddly soothing as the pads of his thumbs massaged the tender tissue in her throbbing mouth. “Just relax. Retract them.”
    Kel wanted to growl in frustration, but she concentrated on pulling the teeth back in like she did the special claws that extended from just above the nail beds in her fingers. The relief was nearly instantaneous. The pressure disappeared with the fangs. If only the sexy stranger would disappear just as easily.
    Shimmering, she put some serious distance between them, although she was careful not to position herself too close to Raife. The last thing she wanted to do was incite another possessive display.
    “All right, boys. Play date’s over,” Kel said, way more flippantly than she felt. Her knees still felt a little weak, and her heart rate hadn’t returned to that stroll-in-the-park level she favored.
    “First,” she continued, starting to feel more in control as her mind returned to the business at hand. Incog, the special security company she and Raife worked for, had been hired to do a job. A job that was not yet complete. But the night wasn’t a total loss. She had the dead body of a badass Sanguen who had been way stronger than any other bloodsucker she had ever met. That made her wonder exactly what the hell he had been taking that gave him that kind of strength. The blood ring that dominated this neighborhood might be dealing in something more dangerous than human blood. The doc would figure it out back at Incog’s lab. If they got that body back sometime tonight.
    Turning to motion the cleanup crew forward, she kept her eyes on the two males that still seemed to be snarling at each other. It was more than obvious what the stranger wanted of her, and her body’s response had been undeniable from the first time she scented him.
    At the memory of that thick and spicy scent, she felt her body responding again as well as the tingling in her gums.
    Whoa! No fangs. No mates. No way.
    She needed to keep her head in the game which meant finding out exactly what the sexy stranger had been doing here in the first place.
    “You,” Kel said to the man in question, clearing the telltale huskiness from her voice as she turned to appraise