by K. A. Linde
Blood Cure is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept Ebook Original
Copyright © 2018 by K. A. Linde
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN 9781524798109
Cover photograph: © Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi
randomhousebooks.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By K. A. Linde
About the Author
Chapter 1
A gunshot pierced the air and another one followed.
Reyna Carpenter ignored it all. None of it mattered to her.
Beckham was dead.
He was lying on the ground and hadn’t moved an inch since Harrington had snapped his neck and dropped him onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. She’d opened her own wrist to feed him her blood. After all, they were a perfect blood match. She should be able to save him.
Instead, she had watched her soul mate die.
And there was nothing she could do to save him.
Tears never came. A sob caught in her throat and buried itself there. She couldn’t think or see or breathe or even feel. Everything was caught up in that one moment. Staring down at the man she loved with all of her heart and being ripped in two.
How could this have happened? Harrington had moved so fast. Beyond her ability to even comprehend and then in that second he’d ruined everything. She had thought that she hated him before. Hated him for kidnapping her, stealing her blood to keep himself alive, and abusing her. For the psychological torture.
But all that was nothing compared to this moment.
A commotion ensued all around her yet she couldn’t drag her eyes away from Beckham to find out what was going on. Did it even matter after this?
An arm grabbed at her. She tried to fight the person off. She screamed. She clung to Beckham. No. She couldn’t move. They couldn’t take her from him.
“Reyna!” Gabe shouted at her. “Reyna, look at me. I just shot Harrington. All the vamps are down. We have to go.”
“No! No! Get off me,” she screamed back at him.
“We’re all going to die if we don’t move now!”
Reyna tried to shrug him off of her, but it was pointless. Gabe was a fighter, an Irish mob boss, and one of the most fearsome leaders of the rebel organization Elle. She could no more move him than bring Beckham back from the dead.
He grasped her around the middle, then hoisted her into the air and over his shoulder. She reached for Beckham. Her hand outstretched into open air. Slowly her brain pieced together everything else that was happening around her. Harrington on the ground, blood pouring out of bullet holes. Rowland next to him trying to staunch the blood loss. The backstabbing traitor Penelope lying on the ground, also bleeding from a gunshot wound, hysterical. People were flooding out of the mayor’s New Year’s Eve party downtown. Everyone seeing the chaos and death and destruction.
Beckham.
She needed to be there with him. She fought against Gabe’s hands, trying to get back to him. But Gabe was strong and persistent. He refused to let go as he carried her farther and farther away.
As they were moving, her heel fell off and onto the patio floor. Just like Cinderella. Except instead of her going to the ball to find Prince Charming, her Prince Charming died at the ball.
“Put me down. Let me go back to him!”
“Reyna, fucking shit!” Gabe yelled at her.
Everything narrowed down to that moment. Beckham was gone. Gabe was taking her away from him. She kicked and clawed at him to release her. She couldn’t do this. Fuck! She couldn’t lose him. She refused for this to be her reality.
Gabe cursed and then dropped her on the pavement, tugging her hastily into a secluded alcove. He grabbed her roughly by both shoulders and stared down into her face. “Snap back to reality, Reyna. There’s nothing we can do right now. Harrington told the snipers not to shoot you, but people are going to be coming after us. If you want to live through the night, I need you to run!”
They were in the midst of mayhem. At the sound of gunshots on the patio they’d just vacated, the New Year’s Eve crowd had dispersed. Everyone was running in a million directions. She’d been so stuck on Beckham she hadn’t even noticed.
“Beckham,” she whispered.
“Live, Reyna,” Gabe pleaded with her, his voice tight. “All you can do is live.”
She hardly saw his sympathetic look as she stared over his shoulder to the patio beyond. Beckham hadn’t moved. Living didn’t feel possible. How could she live when he didn’t? Maybe it was outrageous to even consider, but she felt as if a bomb had detonated in her mind. Shrapnel tearing her apart from the inside out.
Then, to her horror, she saw Rowland stumble to his feet. His eyes caught hers across the divide. They promised blood and torment and destruction. Rowland was now Harrington’s only remaining second-in-command. He had always wanted Reyna—to break Reyna. She could see then and there that he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted this time.
Beckham couldn’t stop him. Harrington wouldn’t stop him.
Leaving now was the only way to escape a fate worse than death.
She couldn’t continue to stand here. She couldn’t go back in time. Nothing she did could fix this situation.
Beckham’s death would not be for nothing. All of this would not be for nothing. She had come here to kill Harrington. And he’d gotten the better of her…of all of them. But if she died here, what would happen to the world?
“Reyna, please,” Gabe said.
She turned clear, devastated eyes to him and nodded her head.
He released a harsh breath of relief. In that moment, she realized that she had scared him. That he’d thought he’d lost her. He didn’t know how right he was. But she would have time
to think about that later. Right now she needed to survive this. They needed to get through this moment. The next one she couldn’t even consider. She wouldn’t ask herself the questions that were already haunting her. She compartmentalized them into one space in her brain, kicked off her other shoe, and took off sprinting after Gabe.
Barefoot and in nothing but a strapless dress and Beckham’s suit coat, she was freezing. But she didn’t dare stop. She would deal with the subfreezing temperatures later too.
They made it to the end of the block and nearly ran smack dab into Meghan. Her fiery red hair was a halo around her head. Her silvery dress obscured by a black bomber jacket that went nearly to her knees.
“What took you so long?” Meghan gasped, moving into position next to them.
“I’ll tell you later,” Gabe said.
Reyna glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes rounded in horror. “Fuck.”
“What?” Gabe asked. He followed her line of sight and cursed violently. “We need to pick it up.”
Reyna measured her breathing and increased her pace. Rowland was following them. It was lucky that he hadn’t reached them considering vampires ran at incredible speeds. Much faster than humans. Unless Beckham throwing him into the brick building had actually hurt him. She’d seen Rowland crumple at the hit. It had taken him a long time to stand up again. But he’d stood.
Reyna glanced back one more time to see that the crowd seemed to be helping keep Rowland off their back. Between the New Year’s Eve mob and the mayhem from the gunshots, he had no clear path. And everything was so haphazard that he had to physically push people out of his way as he attempted to weave through the crowd. No one was making it easy on him.
But after that glance, she couldn’t keep looking. Not if she wanted to get through the crowd herself.
They ran down three blocks, weaving in and out of traffic and taking turns and corners, hoping to lose Rowland and trying to get away from the mass of people to reach their getaway car.
Gabe checked once more and flashed them a victorious smile. “I don’t see him.”
Reyna nodded and Meghan shot both of them a quick grin. But Reyna couldn’t get rid of the uneasy feeling in her stomach. She chewed on her lip and tried to measure her breathing. She didn’t want to be caught unaware.
“Almost there,” Gabe said. “Just this corner.”
They whipped around the next corner faster than any of them had ever run before. An unmarked black van idled on the street. As they rushed toward it, the back doors flapped open.
And then Reyna saw him.
Rowland had come out of nowhere at the end of the street. No longer meandering, he launched himself toward them. He saw the van. He knew that they could get away and she knew he had every intention of stopping them.
It felt as if everything happened in slow motion. Meghan reached the van first, vaulting forward and careening into the empty interior. Gabe was next jumping inside. Reyna was the last and the slowest, her breathing jagged. No matter that she’d spent months training for this very moment. Her time on the treadmill hadn’t actually seemed to prepare her for running outside, barefoot, in unbearably cold temperatures.
She knew Rowland was almost upon her. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder. But she could tell it was too close for comfort.
Meghan had her gun out, pointing it toward them. Gabe placed his hand on it.
“You’ll hit her!”
Meghan shook him off, lifted it again, and aimed. Gabe reached his hand out toward Reyna, and with only a short distance between them she used her last burst of energy and threw her body toward him.
His hand locked on her wrist. Her knee hit the metal bumper. Her shoulder was tugged so hard she swore it felt as if it dislocated as he hauled her inside. She was nearly there when she felt a hand clasp her ankle.
“Go, go, go!” Gabe yelled at Tye, who was driving the getaway car.
He moved to wrap his arms around her chest as he tried to pull her farther inside. But Rowland was definitely stronger. Then the van kicked into drive and suddenly they were all thrown off balance. Gabe scrambled to get his footing again, but even with them rumbling down the street and Rowland having no leverage, he was still pulling her from the van.
“Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to dislodge Rowland from her.
“You think this is over? That you can just walk away?” Rowland spat at her.
“Fuck you,” Meghan yelled.
Then Reyna heard a series of gunshots. Rowland shifted fast enough to miss most of the spray, but a bullet must have hit. He grunted and gave just a bit of release on her ankle. Reyna reared back and kicked him in the face. He let go, falling backward across the pavement.
Gabe tugged Reyna all the way into the van. She was gasping on all fours as she stared out through the open doors at Rowland’s furious face. Even after being shot, he still got back on his feet and tried to race to catch them.
But he couldn’t take down a moving vehicle barreling down the street. Their eyes met in the distance. He pointed his finger at her. A chill ran down her spine. It was as if he was saying that he would come for her. This wasn’t over.
But…it was over.
It was all over.
Chapter 2
The van skittered around another corner and toward safety as Meghan and Gabe pulled the doors closed. The noise from the outside disappeared, sending them all into a stony silence, their labored breathing the only sound.
Reyna didn’t recognize the woman with brown skin and a bindi on her forehead who ducked into the back from the passenger seat. She rummaged through a black duffel bag and handed warmer clothes to Meghan and Gabe. She started to move toward Reyna, but Gabe put his hand out to stop her. His eyes shot to Reyna’s and then back. He just shook his head as if she were a volcano about to erupt.
The woman shrugged and passed the clothes to Gabe. He walked through the large open area in the back to where Reyna was still seated on the floor, shell-shocked. She tucked her knees to her chest, pulling Beckham’s jacket tighter around her. She wasn’t relinquishing this. No matter what anyone said.
“Hey,” Gabe said, crouching down. “You’re going to get sick if you don’t change into this. You don’t want it all to be for nothing.”
He held out a pair of pants, thick socks, a sweater, and a jacket to match Meghan’s. When she didn’t respond, he put the clothes next to her and went to talk to Meghan, who appeared a minute later with a haunted look in her eyes.
She didn’t try to talk to Reyna. She didn’t try to tell her that things would be better. She didn’t lie to her. She just acted like the nurse that she was trained to be. She helped Reyna into the pants and socks. Reyna only protested when Meghan tried to remove Beckham’s jacket. This was all she had left of him.
Tears filled Meghan’s eyes at the sight. She slung the other jacket on top of Beckham’s, rubbed Reyna’s hair gently, and then stepped away. She returned a minute later to bandage her wrist and then left her alone.
The adrenaline of the escape and chase had suddenly left Reyna’s body, leaving her utterly empty. Leaving her with her memories.
Beckham’s broken body. Him falling to the ground. Not moving. Dead.
She felt as broken as he had looked in that moment. Broken and shell-shocked and bleeding and empty. Just…empty.
Reyna could hear everyone whispering about her. “What happened to her?” the woman asked.
Gabe shook his head. “Beckham…”
“He’s gone?”
Meghan cleared her throat noisily. “Prisha,” she hissed.
“Yeah,” Gabe replied. “He’s gone.”
Tye cursed softly.
Meghan hiccupped around her own tears.
“She saw it?” Prisha murmured.
“Yeah,” Gabe whispered.
�
�Poor thing.”
But Reyna didn’t feel like a poor thing.
She wasn’t a wounded animal.
She was destroyed. Obliterated. Demolished.
She was as cold as ice and just as frozen. Inside and out.
She had left him behind.
And her entire heart with him.
* * *
—
Reyna lost track of how long they’d been driving.
It could have been hours. She had no sense of where they were going. She didn’t bother asking.
Her mind was a merciless place. As much as she wanted to burrow down into her numbness, compartmentalize, and forget what had just happened, she couldn’t. She pressed her palms against her eyes and tried to block out the images assaulting her. But it was no use. She didn’t think she’d ever go a day without seeing them.
Eventually, they pulled off the main roads. The van rumbled to a stop and they parked inside a garage. The door shut behind them, casting them into darkness. Reyna took a measured breath to still her unease before Gabe hauled the back door open again.
“Come on,” Meghan said, reaching for Reyna’s hand. “Let’s get you inside.”
Reyna let Meghan help her out. She straightened her spine at her friend’s look of pity and then left the truck. Gabe and Meghan followed her to where Prisha was standing with Tye. Prisha gestured for them to move toward a back door.
The house they entered was plain, with hardly anything in it. Just some used furniture and a foldout table in the kitchen. It didn’t look like a place where someone lived. Another safe house.
“There are three bedrooms,” Prisha said. “Washington has already taken one. I’m happy to share my own. You can decide who gets the third. I also have a couch and an air mattress.”