Blood Bond (PULSE, Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

hurried back as quickly as we could!” Jaegar insisted. “But we couldn't get our hands on that servant girl – whoever she was. Probably some little vampire minx sent by the enemy.”
    “No, I don't think so,” said Octavius darkly. “No, I think she sent us for a reason.”
    “What are you talking about?” Justin turned to him. “You said yourself there was nobody there?”
    Octavius shook his head. “I said not a soul .” But he said no more.
    Jaegar rushed to Kalina, covering her with kisses. She blushed – seeing Octavius and Justin both in the room was too much for her – but she did not stop him. “And when I think of how stupid I almost was,” Jaegar sighed. “How stupid I was – letting you here by yourself. You could have been killed.”
    “We did all right on our own,” Justin clapped him on the shoulder – in part, Kalina thought, to keep him from pawing his sister as much as to reassure him.
    Jaegar turned around. “Really?”
    “I mean, I wouldn't recommend leaving us alone with vampires – but we managed to polish off a few of them!”
    “We?” Jaegar looked dubious.
    “It's true!” said Kalina. “Justin saved my life – a vampire came out of nowhere while I was fighting another one, and he got it by surprise, straight in the back!”
    Justin beamed with pleasure, his ears turning ever so slightly pink with embarrassment. “I'm not saying she didn't save my poor human behind a few seconds later,” he said. “The other one managed to get me – and she staked it just in time. Gave me a few nasty bruises though.”
    Jaegar smiled. “It looks like your brother's good for something after all,” he said, turning to Kalina. His cocksure smile was enough to make her melt.
    “I doubted it for years and years,” she laughed. “Always figured Mom and Dad had him just to annoy me. But now I'm not so sure…” She grew quiet. Mom and Dad. Such strange, remote, mysterious figures now.
    “And I haven't even got Life's Blood in me,” said Justin. “Just saying – you all have an unfair advantage.”
    “Careful,” Octavius said darkly, “you're just asking to be turned.”
    The group turned in surprise to face him. Never before had Kalina heard Octavius speak of such a thing – turning anybody , let alone Kalina's own brother, was a topic of great sensitivity for Octavius. But his face was unsmiling.
    “It was a joke, man!” Justin laughed uncomfortably. “I don't want to turn – no offense to all of you.”
    “I shouldn't think you'd want to,” said Octavius. “But who knows what we might have to do – if what I think is true. That village made me realize – this place, this beginning of our journey, could not be in a more unfortunate location. These steppes are ancient – the powers here are ancient. And an attack on the palace so soon means that we have been detected. And that one far more powerful than I am is against us.”
    “What are you talking about?” Justin asked.
    Octavius sighed. “We may need to turn whomever we can get,” he said. “I will spare you for now, Justin – out of respect to Kalina, and to our friendship.” His expression grew grim. “But if you were not Kalina's brother, if you were not dear to her, I would consider doing to you what I have in the course of my life done to many humans with potential to save our kind – against their will. Not out of cruelty, you understand, but out of necessity. The greater good.”
    He sat before them. “Mongolia is an ancient place, and here there is a vampire who is older than Mal, older even than Nikolai – my oldest and dearest friend – older than my maker Isaiah. His name is Molotov. In my time at the Consortium I heard his name mentioned. As a friend or as an enemy, none of us knew. We knew he was powerful and remote, and had no interest in our petty Western dealings. Whether he wished for order or chaos we did not know. We knew nothing about him but that he rejected all emissaries, and