Read Online Blood Kiss by J.R. Ward - Free Book Online Page B

stood in front of her kin, waiting in a position of neither strength nor weakness.
    The door opened and the curtain was pulled back. A nurse, one who had not been involved in the death, put her head in. “Doctor, we are prepped in four.”
    Havers nodded. “Thank you.” When the nurse ducked back out, he said, “Will you excuse me? I have to—”
    â€œTake care of your patients. By all means. It’s what you do best, and you are very good at it.”
    Marissa left the room, and after a split second of which-way, remembered to go left. It was easier to regain her composure out in the open and keep her mask in place as she walked back down to the reception area—and all eyes were on her as she departed, as if word had spread among the staff. Strange that she recognized no faces—it made her realize anew just how many had been killed in the raids, how long it had been since she had been around her brother’s work.
    How the two of them, in spite of blood ties, were essentially strangers.
    Taking the elevator back up to the surface, she emerged in the cell-like pre-building and punched her way out into the forest.
    Unlike the evening before, tonight the moon shone brightly, illuminating the forest . . . and the absolutely no road in. It dawned on her then that there truly were a multiple of entrances to the subterranean complex, some for deliveries, others for patients who were able to dematerialize, and then that one for ambulances.
    All of it so logically set up, undoubtedly due to her brother’s input and influence.
    Why hadn’t Wrath told her that he was helping Havers with all this?
    Then again, it wasn’t really her business, was it.
    Had Butch known? she wondered.
    I am so sorry.
    As Marissa heard her brother’s voice in her head, her anger came back tenfold, to the point that she had to rub a heartburn sensation away from her sternum.
    â€œWater under the bridge,” she told herself. “Time to go back to work.”
    And yet she couldn’t seem to leave. In fact, the idea of heading to Safe Place made her want to bolt in the opposite direction: She couldn’t tell the staff there about what had happened just now. The female’s death was like a negation of everything they tried to do under that roof: intercept, protect, educate, empower.
    Nope. She couldn’t face going there right away.
    The problem was . . . she had no idea where to go.

Chapter Six
    I n the darkness that was as dense as that of a grave, Paradise could hear only her heart thundering behind her ribs. Squinting, she tried to get her eyes to adjust, but there was no light source anywhere—no glow from around the doors, no red Exit signs, no emergency lights. The void was utterly terrifying and seemed to defy the laws of gravity, the sense that she had maybe floated off the floor even as her weight remained on her feet confusing her, nauseating her.
    No more classical music, either.
    But things were far from silent. As she forced her ears to reprioritize away from the castanets in her chest, she could hear the muttering, the breathing, the cursing. A few must have been moving a little, the rustling of clothes, the shuffling of feet, like background chatter to the more prominent vocal noises.
    They can’t hurt us, she told herself. There was no way the Brotherhood was actually going to hurt any of them: Yes, she had signed a consent and waiver form on the back of the application—not that she had read the fine print with much interest—but in any event, murder was murder.
    You couldn’t sign away your right to remain breathing.
    This was just the Brotherhood making their grand entrance. Any moment now. Yup, they were going to emerge spotlit from some door, silhouetted like superheroes against a rolling white fog, their awesome weaponry hanging from their larger-than-life bodies.
    Uh-huh.
    Any minute now . . .
    As the darkness