Blood Bond (PULSE, Book 5) Read Online Free

if in wonder that so small a weapon could do such a great thing. His eyes widened in surprise. “Kalina, I did it!”
    “Justin, watch out!” But it was too late. The first vampire, his eyes gleaming like rubies, had taken hold of him. Justin shouted in pain as the vampire raised him up from behind, so that he stood as a virtual shield between Kalina and the red-eyed vampire. Justin kicked and wrestled with the vampire, but it was no use. His stake fell to the ground with a clatter.
    “How about you reconsider the whole coming quietly option?” The vampire laughed. “Or else I take this one before I take you. I've never had siblings before.”
    “Run!” Justin was shouting, his elbows striking time and again against the vampire's cold, immobile chest. “Kalina, get out of here.”
    Kalina's heart beat faster still. No, she told herself – she could not become afraid. She could not falter. She had to trust in the Life's Blood, in the dark beating pulse that threatened at every moment to take possession of her. She could feel it taking hold, feel it calling to be let in, feel her body shake and shiver as the Life's Blood demanded victory over its prey.
    The world seemed to go dark as this other-Kalina, this new-Kalina took hold.
    “I'm reconsidering.” Her expression darkened as the vampire's teeth poised over Justin's lightly tanned neck.
    “Careful, or I'll just eat him right away...” The vampire laughed.
    “Reconsidered.” With a flying leap, Kalina leaped onto the vampire, her body colliding with Justin's as she did so. Before the mass of bodies hit the floor, she swung her arm around Justin and the vampire together in what felt like an embrace, her stake plunging around the back into the vampire's spine. He crumbled immediately into dust as Kalina rapidly moved the stake away as they fell, managing to remove it from under Justin's chest just moments before they fell.
    They collided with a harsh sound on the floor.
    “Ow...” Justin rubbed his elbows, now skinned and covered in vampire-dust.
    “That was a close call,” she sighed.
    “You're telling me.” Justin rose.
    “We'll need to get some bandages on those.” Pockets of blood were forming at his elbows and his knees, soaking through the skin.  
    “Figures, doesn't it?” Justin gave a dark laugh. “We get attacked by vampires and I get hurt by falling over while you try to save me.”
    “Better bled than dead,” said Kalina. “Now let's get upstairs. There might be more where these two are from.”
    They ran back up to the top balcony, making their way to Octavius’ room.
    They heard the sounds of footsteps in the courtyard, and Kalina's heart stopped short once again. “Who’s there?” She leaned over the balcony, her stake in hand. “If you've come for a piece of Life's Blood, I’m warning you, I’ll turn your miserable corpse to dust in as little time as...”
    “It's us!” Jaegar's cheerful voice called from the courtyard as he and Octavius ascended the stairway. “We realized it was a trap as soon as we'd arrived.”
    “I did tell you,” Octavius muttered.
    “They managed to get past the guards,” said Octavius. “Who were diminished in number – we had taken some with us.”
    “What happened?”
    Jaegar sighed as the four of them entered Octavius’ rooms; Octavius quickly locked the door, after sweeping the rooms with his gaze for hidden vampires.
    “A servant girl arrived at the house – an unfamiliar one. Said she was the cook's niece, that a whole group of vampires had been spotted south of the palace, that they had already attacked and made mincemeat of the whole nearby village and that they were coming for us next.”
    “By the time she led us to the village in question, she managed to vanish – how a creature can simply vanish in this steppes is beyond me, leaving us alone in the heart of a village in which there was not a soul – vampire or otherwise. And then we knew that something was wrong.”
    “We