Read Online The Warrior Vampire by Kate Baxter - Free Book Online Page B

blade through the links, joining the chain. She focused her magic, channeling it through her body, down her arm and wrist, and into the blade. It flashed white-hot for a single moment, just long enough to fuse the chains together.
    Naya let out the breath she’d been holding and pulled back on her power, centering herself once again. It took a fair bit of energy to manifest her magic so quickly and it had taken a toll on her already-exhausted body. Without realizing it, she reached out, bracing herself with her palm on Ronan’s back.
    â€œAre you all right?” He turned his head to glance at her from over his shoulder.
    â€œLiving room,” Naya ordered as she dropped her hand to the chain and guided Ronan toward the door.
    True to his word, Ronan played the obedient captive and allowed Naya to direct him out of the bedroom and into her living room. The space was sparsely furnished with only one couch, but it was open and bigger than the bedroom, so if need be Naya had the space she’d need to fight if Ronan decided to retaliate. She turned him around and pushed against his shoulder with two fingers, urging him to sit down. He complied with that lopsided grin and Naya couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Gods, he must have had women falling at his feet with that expression. Rather than sit and thereby put herself at a disadvantage, Naya chose to stand a good eight feet away at the far end of the room near the small fireplace, giving her plenty of space to prepare for an attack. She propped her elbow up on the mantle and cocked her head as she appraised her prisoner. “You said you wanted to talk. So … talk.”
    Ronan sighed, and again Naya pictured him running his fingers through the thick tangles of his hair. “I’m not even sure where to begin.”
    Great. She should have known he’d try to weasel his way out of talking. “You lied to me earlier when you said you didn’t know my name.”
    â€œNot true.” Ronan rolled his shoulders and Naya couldn’t help but notice his discomfort. “I didn’t know your name when you asked me, and to tell you the truth, I don’t know how I know it now. It could be that I know it through our tether.”
    â€œThat smells like bullshit to me.” There were ways to get the truth out of him. But neither were options Naya was willing to explore just yet. “You’re throwing some weighty words around, vampire. ‘Mate’ being one of them. And I don’t know what in the hell a tether is, but if that’s how you know my name and that I’m in some kind of danger, it’s time you came clean.”
    He flashed another lopsided grin and she gritted her teeth, more to keep from smiling back than anything. He had the charming angle down pat. “I still don’t remember anything that happened last night. Maybe if you filled me in, it would jog my memory?”
    â€œSee, your problem is that you think you can manipulate this conversation in your favor. That’s just not going to happen, Ronan. So, you claim you can’t remember anything that’s happened since you breezed into town. Whenever that was. For the record, I’m not sure that I believe that, but we’ll just skip over that for now. You have the answer to my next question and I want it. No more stalling. What is this tether? Does it have to do with the magic you’ve stolen?”
    Ronan fixed her with a dubious stare. “Naya, I haven’t stolen any magic. In fact, I wouldn’t even know how to go about doing that. But I can guarantee you, pilfered magic or not, it has nothing to do with our tether.”
    Our . The word was spoken with a possessive edge that caused chills to break out over her flesh. As if this tether was some shared thing between them, something that Naya had been a willing party to.
    It wasn’t unusual to encounter other witches or supernatural creatures that came by their