Read Online Life Blood: Cora's Choice #1 by V. M. Black - Free Book Online

treatment?  For sure?”  Lisette asked.
    “Yeah,” I said.  “I can call and make my appointment in two days.  As soon as finals are over, I’m doing it.”
    “I know you’ll pull through,” Lisette said staunchly.  “It’s going to work.  It’s got to.”
    “Yeah,” I said.  “Then Geoff and I try to pick up where we left off.  More or less.”
    She rolled her eyes.  “Where you left off was making moony faces at each other over your textbooks and lunch trays.  You’ve got to do better than that.”
    “You’re one to talk, little miss no-love-life,” I returned.
    “At least I’m not making all my friends sit through my ridiculously protracted mating ritual,” she said.  “Seriously, you’re like middle schoolers.”
    I finished my bowl of cereal, dumped out the milk, and set the bowl in the sink to wash after lunch.  “We’re not really the rushing type,” I said.  I pulled on my jacket and swung my backpack over my shoulder.
    “It’s been three years, Cora.  I don’t think anybody’s going to accuse you of rushing,” said Lisette.
    “I’ll see you tonight,” I said pointedly, my hand on the door.
    She smiled.  “Yeah, see you.”
    ***
    I was alone in the room, some kind of stone chamber with supporting arches every few feet that made it impossible to see very far.
    “Hello?” I called out.
    There was no answer.
    The room was cold.  I rubbed my palms against my upper arms, the muscles of my stomach and nipples tightening beneath the thigh-length tee shirt that was my only clothing.  I began walking, peering through the murky dimness, moving through the maze of pillar and arch aimlessly.  I had to reach a wall eventually, I decided.  Somewhere, there had to be an end to this.
    Then I saw the light.  It was red, low, and fitful, but it gave me a destination, and I sped up, my bare feet soft on the bare dirt floor.  I came around a final pillar, and I saw in then, a kind of metal bowl or fire pit full of coals so hot that they were nearly smokeless, bending the air above them with their heat.
    I approached, drawn by the warmth in the dank chill of the endless chamber.
    And then I saw him.  And my heart seemed to stop.
    Mr. Thorne stood in the shadows on the other side of the fire.  He was nothing like the urbane, contained man I had sat across from at the restaurant.  Dressed in a loose white shirt and dark pants, he seemed larger, freer, and not entirely human.
    “Ms. Shaw.”  My name sounded like a prayer on his lips.  Those lips.  “You’ve come.”
    I said nothing, mesmerized by his raw beauty.
    He circled the fire pit in slow, stalking steps.  He was dragging something at his side, something long and narrow, but I could not take my eyes off his face to look at it properly.
    He came right up to me and stopped, just as he had when I turned to face him in front of the restaurant.  Then he pulled me against him with one hand, so that I could feel the length of his body, and his mouth came down over mine.
    And I lost myself.  The heat flared up in my midsection, twisting inside me, lancing down between my thighs and up, into my lungs and into my heart until I could only cling to him.
    Then I felt him pressing something into my palm.  His other hand, the one that held the object.  And I saw that it was a long, thin rod of iron, and on the end of it was a letter:  T.  His letter.
    His brand.
    “Take it, Ms. Shaw.”  He breathed the words into my hair.
    My hand closed around the rod.  I knew what he wanted, and I knew that I would do it.  My heart beat wildly out of control.
    Mr. Thorne kissed me again, urgently, and I stuck the end into the coal.  I threw back my head as his kisses moved lower, across my neck, to the collar of the tee shirt.  His free hand skimmed over my body, up from my thigh, under the shirt, and then he was pulling it off over my head.  I was naked in front of him, but I was too hungry to be ashamed.
    He said, “It is