Blood Draw: Book Two of the Blood Type Series (complete)

In Which Things Go Awry

I woke later to find myself alone, unable to speak or move due to Margaret's compulsion. From the window, I saw it was now dark. At this time of year, it could have been any time between early evening and the middle of the night. Leah was gone, as was the tube connecting me to the blood that had left me drugged. My mind was clear now, though I had a splitting headache.

Margaret stormed in without warning, shoving my wide-eyed best friend ahead of her. Alarms bells exploded in my head as I waged an inward struggle against my invisible restraints.

"Explain yourself," Margaret snarled at me.

I gasped as the bond of compulsion lifted. "What is she doing here?"

"I am the one asking questions!" Margaret trembled with rage, her voice sharp as cut glass. Her eyes were like ice. "Why were Andrew Larsen and a host of other vampires at John Kelly's house?"

"I don't know."

Olivia stared at me, confusion and fear on her face. Margaret twined a fistful of long blond hair around her hand and yanked, pulling back Olivia's head to expose the pulse throbbing wildly at the base of her jaw. She bared her fangs.

"Don't lie to me!"

Olivia whimpered. I instinctively tried to go to her, and yet I couldn't move. "Calm down, okay?" I said, trying to keep my own fear in check.

Margaret's nostrils flared, but she didn't ease her grip. "I went to the coffee shop to find Olivia, only she wasn't there. Her boyfriend, however, was very helpful. Apparently, she grew concerned when you didn't show up and John didn't answer her call, so she decided to go looking for you."

I had told John not to accept any calls or texts from Olivia.

"Lucky me, I arrived just as John was compelling her." She jerked Olivia's hair again, causing her neck to bend at a painful angle. Olivia cried out as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

"You had better start explaining what was going on at John's because it looked an awful lot like treason!"

"You could have compelled any one of them to tell you," I said.

"Oh, but it's a lot more fun this way," she said through her teeth.

The crazed look in her eyes set my heart racing. "Margaret, please—"

"Did I not warn you what would happen if you crossed this family?"

"Margaret, I think you—"

With no further comment, Margaret sank her teeth into my best friend's neck. Olivia arched her back, a scream caught in her throat, but then her knees buckled and her body went limp. The swift violence of the moment brought back memories of Ian's attack.

"No!" I screamed as Margaret crouched over Olivia's lifeless body. "Help! Somebody, please help!"

Josiah responded to my cries first, followed closely by Thomas and Ian. Thomas hesitated only long enough to assess the situation. "Restrain my sister," he instructed Josiah and Ian. "She's not in her right mind."

Josiah placed a hand around Margaret's mouth to stifle her words as he and Ian dragged her away, struggling against her preternatural vampire strength. Thomas stared at Olivia, who lay still on the floor, her complexion a deathly shade of gray.

"Thomas, you have to help her."

He turned to me then. "She's not a candidate, Blake. She never was."

"I don't care!"

"But she—"

"Thomas!"