The Path of Razors Read Online Free Page B

Dawn and Eva, they were on all kinds of vitamins and supplements so they could offer the taste of blood that satisfied Costin and Frank the most.
    Near Eva, Frank had his head down, no doubt struggling with the sight of Costin’s blood, but as Breisi drifted by, he lifted his gaze to her.
    Eva looked away.
    Kiko slid off of his stool, his short little-person legs cushioning the slight fall. He went for a low steel cabinet where some med kits were kept.
    “Good thinking, Kik,” Dawn said. “We’ll need a wipe to get this blood off the boss before the vamps in this room start going nuts.”
    Now Frank was breathing as hard as Costin was, his nostrils flaring at the blood, even from across the bevy of experimental weapons and tabled experiments stored in the lab.
    Dawn watched her dad with concern, but he waved her off. She rolled her eyes, her gaze ultimately landing on a freezer, which was stocked full of a mysterious, very dead commando who had, using night-vision goggles, tracked the team before falling to his demise about a week ago.
    Yeah, a kid who’d been creeping around while the team had investigated the site of a vampire burial.
    Just one more thing to worry about.
    Kiko made it to Dawn in rocket time; Mr. Efficient had even already opened the med kit so she could yank out a packaged wipe.
    She tore at the packet, extracted the wipe, then casually took Costin’s hand again to clean it off.
    “Next time,” Dawn said to her patient, “maybe you should think about how much fight that wall has in it before you start whaling on it.”
    “I was at my wits’ end,” he said, his tone back to that low Wal lachian accent that had always made her go a little liquid. “Jonah has grown too strong and ...”
    He didn’t finish, and Dawn knew it was because a tough guy like him—a soldier who’d fought on fields of blood centuries ago—didn’t allow themselves to break.
    Fair enough. She wouldn’t embarrass him by acknowledging any weakness he might be showing, so she just continued cleaning his knuckles.
    But, at the same time, she felt the cold calm that kept her sane push even deeper into her bones.
    Yet wasn’t that what they needed right now?
    Couldn’t they all use a little alert frostiness?
    The mangled cuts on Costin’s knuckles were closing up, but Dawn felt as if she were the one still bleeding.
    “I’m sorry,” she said softly, disposing of the wipe by going to a drawer, retrieving a bag, and zipping up the refuse in it. She tossed it in a trash bin with a tightly sealed cover. “I wish there was something else I could do to help you with Jonah, Costin.”
    “But you made a promise to him.” He held his gnarled hand near his stomach, and it was only now that her mind caught up and processed that he had changed out of the fight clothing Jonah had worn last night in favor of Costin’s usual dark lounging threads.
    Fine idea, really. Jonah had gotten blood on the fabric when he’d had the time of his life out there, feeding and running around.
    Next to Dawn, Kiko spoke up. “Boss, she’s only trying to work with Jonah.”
    “I know.”
    Costin closed his eyes, and Dawn didn’t even have to enter his mind—to access their personal master-progeny Awareness-to know he was approaching the end of more than one rope.
    How many times had she gotten him to this point since she’d come on the team?
    He opened his eyes, then glanced at his hand, his face expressionless, and that scared Dawn more than any of the Underground vampires they needed to hunt in order to save Costin, or even to save...
    Well, the world.
    Uh-huh, she’d gone and thought it, and the idea wasn’t any less of a hilarious nightmare. Her, the world saver.
    Costin raised his chin, as if in defiance, and for a second, Dawn thought that maybe he’d shed something—his rage at Jonah, his fruitless attempts to change what couldn’t be changed now with his host.
    “I suppose then,” he said, “that we shall require an