The Gathering Read Online Free Page A

shadows. Her hair hung past her waist and stood out
on her head in a mass of tangled curls. She was pale as death and
hissing at them, his blood dripping from her fangs.
    Climbing to his feet, he blotted at his neck
one last time before tossing the shirt away and staring at the
girl. Taking a few steps closer, he stopped next to Garrett. “Is
that what I think it is?”
    Garrett nodded his head. “If you’re thinking
vampire, then, yeah.”
    She sat there, unmoving, and Bryce felt his
stomach roll at the thoughts of that… thing, touching him. He hated
vampires. Loathed them. His disgust grew when his neck started to
throb where she’d bitten him. His first instinct was to kill her
where she sat. He wasn’t sure how the others would react,
though.
    The girl barely blinked. She watched them,
unflinching, and seeing her so still unnerved him.
    No one said a word for long moments and the
silence was deafening. He finally spoke up. “What the hell is a
vampire doing in Caleb’s hideout?”
    “That’s a very good question.” Garrett lifted
his flashlight, the beam reflecting off a thin wire attached to the
wall. The end disappeared in the girl’s hair. “A better question
would be, what is a vampire doing tied to the wall in Caleb’s
hideout.”
    Bryce edged closer but stopped when the girl
shrank away from him. For a creature that tried to kill him minutes
ago, she was skittish as hell now.
    He watched her turn her head, staring at
everyone in the tunnel before she looked back at him. Her mouth was
smeared with his blood, and she was a sight he would never forget,
but when she lifted her head and looked him in the eye, his breath
caught.
    Her eyes were quite large and almost white,
the irises the palest ice blue he’d ever seen. The color didn’t
shock him as much as what he saw in them did. Fear. Since she
wasn’t human, he couldn’t smell it like he normally could but there
was no mistaking what he saw in her face. As aggressive as she’d
been, this girl, this vampire, looked terrified, something he’d
never seen before in the species. Vampires weren’t scared of
anything but this one was.
    He took a step closer to her, stopping when
she shrank away from him again and lowered her head. He bent at the
knees, stooping down to get eye level with her before tilting his
head to try and see her face. “What are you doing up here?”
    She looked up but didn’t say anything. She
flicked a quick glance to his neck before meeting his gaze, her
eyes shimmering with color for a brief moment before turning back
to that pale ice blue.
    When she licked her lips, dragging in the
remains of his blood from her face, finding the animal corpses made
more sense. She’d been surviving off of the animals stupid enough
to venture into her tunnel and he was one of them. She’d attacked
him to feed. Nothing more.
    Casting a quick glance up at Garrett, his
pack leader raised an eyebrow at him before he looked back at the
girl.
    She was still watching him, and he wasn’t
sure what the hell to do. Apparently no one did.
    He bit back a sigh when no one offered to say
anything. “I’m Bryce. This is Garrett.” He pointed out the packs
leader to her. “We live down the mountain, near Wolf’s Creek. Who
are you and what are you doing here?”
    She opened her mouth but shut it without
speaking. She flicked a glance up at the others before raising her
hand and pushing her hair away from her face. The moment she did,
he sat back, stunned.
    The metal wire attached to the wall was
around her neck. In her neck would be a better way of putting it.
Dried blood coated her skin and he could see the wire below both
her ears. Where it met around her throat, though, was imbedded into
her flesh. “Christ,” he whispered, moving closer to her. “Who the
hell did that?”
    Garrett leaned down to look. His eyes widened
a bit before he blew out a breath. “She’s damn near cut her own
head off trying to get out of here.”
    “Yeah.” As much