In The Blood Book Review Novels & Stories

" I bit down so hard I tasted blood. Like a madwoman, I clawed and bit at the people holding me back–until I finally broke free and snatched back what was left of Jamie's body. The dogs had been eating happily. Having their food taken, they bared their teeth and lunged at me. Connor frowned and had them pulled away at once. His patience was gone. He did not even want to look at me anymore. Supporting Camille, he turned to leave. I stared at their backs and shouted through clenched teeth, "My child is dead. Hers won't live either!" After Connor's older brother died, he began 'taking care' of his sister-in-law–until she ended up in his bed.

And curiosity, in my world, always ended in blood. END OF CHAPTER 1

At last, Rachel spoke, her voice breaking with tears, "Mrs. Ashford, thank God you’re back! Serena runs wild in this house. Mr. Ashford spoils her beyond belief. She didn’t just break my fingers. She’s left the other guards beaten and crippled. Some of them can’t even walk without crutches now…" So that explained why half our security team had vanished. Serena had grown this brazen. Influenced by my past, Adrian always believed fighting and injuries were no big deal. After all, I’d once been the one to clean up the messes. However, that was more than a decade ago. Now we lived in a society governed by law. Every crime had consequences. That was why I’d washed my hands of the underworld. The

I exhale loudly and make to snap the book shut but the sharp end prick my finger. With a hiss under my breath, I press my finger tightly as tiny drops of blood trickles down. The blood drops on the page and like a mystery, words begin to form, unraveling themselves. I watch with shock, my heart pounding against my ribcage at the swirling letters that aren't there before. As soon as it starts, the strokes end. I glance warily at my finger which has healed instantly and with my pulse spiking, I read the words; ‘Rare is the blood born beneath the crimson gaze of the moon,

This isn’t a battle to end in Book Three. This is a war of belief that will burn into Book Four, and a reckoning that will echo into Book Five. But for the first time since Brine Hollow… I don’t feel cornered. I feel ready.

The food was definitely not ordinary, and I wasn't sure I wanted to fall under the influence of whatever poison he'd add to the food. I closed my eyes and leaned on the shelf, stretching my legs to ease the pain in my joints, but I soon noticed that the blood dripping from my wound had begun to sip into one of the books on the floor. In a split second, I already moved my hand away from the book, but in the process I mistakenly flipped the book open. I moved my hand in an attempt to stop blood from dripping onto the pages of the book, and as I was about to push the book away my eyes caught something on it.

I found myself walking towards her. "We can't Carden would kill us. If not him then her flat out rejection of us." We stopped in our tracks. I sat down beside Sarin with a smile starting to read a book that Blair-Boo had been reading, By These Ten Bones, By Clare B. Dunkle. "Would this book be about us or would Vampire Diaries fit better. We are a hybrid after all. A forced into existence, freak of nature."

My father thinks I spend my nights reading. That’s not entirely a lie. Just not books. This room is mine in a way no other room in this house is mine. The rest of the townhouse is my mother's taste — warm and beautiful and expensive, every surface chosen to project exactly the image the Conti family wants projected. My room looks like the inside of my head. Whiteboards on two walls, half of them network maps, the other half cipher keys I've already cracked. A punching bag in the corner worn to gray leather at center mass. Gun cabinet beside the closet — three weapons, combination lock. My father knows about two of them. I find the thread at 3:12 a.m. A routing number. Buried six layers deep,

“Do you perhaps know who owned this?” “No, of course not.” She waved her hand dismissing what I said. She looked at the diary again and then sighed, lowering her voice. “But that, my dear, seems to be a blood book.” I blinked. “A… blood book?” “Yes.” She folded her hands behind her back, he tone grave and quiet. “It’s a very old kind of magical artifact. Dangerous to most, useless to many. A blood book is a record that only reveals its contents to its creator or to a direct descendant of the one who made it.”