Blood Covenant Read Online Free

one who wanted nothing more than to help the people here.”
“Someone once told me that there are two kinds of people who end up here: runners and seekers. The runners are fleeing their past and the seekers are hungry for adventure.”
“Which one are you?”
He’d run the first time at twenty-one. Adventure had become the perfect escape. Thirteen years later, there were still days when he felt as if he was trying to find a way to buy his redemption.
“Honestly? I suppose a bit of both. What about you?”
She looked up and caught his gaze. “I don’t know that it really matters anymore. I’m leaving for the capital tomorrow to finish up some paperwork and debriefing, then catching a flight on to Nashville on Friday. I’m going home.”

FOUR
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 12:39 P.M.
KINGANI HOSPITAL, KINGANI REGION
Paige felt the tension that had been building in her shoulders begin to release at the thought of going home, but even that wasn’t enough to dissipate the lingering anger. Something had snapped the moment Simon took his last breath. Life had turned into a game of Russian roulette and she wanted out.
Three months ago, she’d left for the RD as a naive doctor who’d intended her assignment with Volunteers of Hope International to be the first of many. It hadn’t taken long for that idealistic dream to shatter. In a matter of weeks, the stark reality magnifying the gap between the haves and have-nots had left her reeling. She’d watched mothers lose their babies and children lose their parents, all because of the lack of clean water, inadequate medical care, and harsh living conditions. And no matter how many lists she wrote or how many improvements she tried to implement, the pain and suffering she saw around her only seemed to multiply.
“Are you ready to go back home?” Nick’s question broke through her troubled thoughts.
“Honestly, I never thought I’d be so ready to leave.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek, self-conscious of her display of emotion in front of a man she barely knew.
“Give yourself some credit. Jonga is said to be one of the hardest assignments in the country.”
Paige couldn’t help but smile. “It isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis.”
Before being transferred to Kingani for the last month of her assignment, she’d worked alongside twenty Dzambizian nationals and a handful of foreign volunteers in Jonga. The remote Volunteers of Hope compound had consisted of a row of whitewashed buildings and thatch-roofed huts. Electricity had been sporadic, telephone lines nonexistent, and relief from the heat impossible to come by.
She shoved her hands inside the front pockets of her scrubs and felt the worn photo of Marila. The ten-year-old orphan’s plight had been the significant factor that had not only brought her here, but had kept her going when the reality of living in a third-world country hit with a vengeance. And was why her relief to return home was tinged with traces of sadness.
“Despite all the frustrations, there are parts I love about the work. The children’s smiles, the mothers’ love for their babies, and their dedication to family. I’ve been able to run mobile clinics, set up cholera treatment and therapeutic feeding centers, and oversee vaccination campaigns. There are days I’ve felt as if I were making a difference.”
“You are.” Nick’s solemn expression intensified the worry lines on his forehead. “But then sometimes, like today, there’s nothing else you can do but walk away. Humanitarian efforts often become high-value targets and a way for rebels to leverage their demands, which in turn can strip us of our role as provider.”
Which was what haunted her the most. She was used to finding solutions to problems and making things work. Her medical knowledge and experience helped keep her in control, and being told she couldn’t do something made her want to fight back.
But even those intermittent feelings weren’t enough to make her want to