Blood Cure (Blood Type 3)

“You and Laura can come back with us.”

Drew sighed. “As much as I’d like to do that, Rey, I feel like…I should stay here. I don’t trust Everett farther than I can throw him and someone needs to be here to lead these people.”

She swallowed around a knot in her throat. “Right. That makes perfect sense.” Sometimes she wanted to be that little girl who threw herself into her brother’s arms and let her cares fall away. But they both needed to lead this rebellion if it had any hope of getting legs again. “I’ll miss you.”

“Always, Rey.” He drew her in for a hug and whispered into her ear, “We’re going to have to figure out what happened to Brian. The not knowing is killing her.”

Reyna nodded. “I know.”

“The stress is bad for the baby.”

“How are you holding up?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Drew,” she muttered. He’d always been the softer of her two brothers, trying so hard to be more like Brian, but it never took. “Gregory is gone. I know how devastating that is. I thought Becks was gone and it nearly destroyed me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Rey. Let’s think about Laura, okay? I have to take care of her. Brian would want me to do that.”

Reyna nodded sadly. She knew exactly how he was feeling. Burying yourself in work, in a mission, in everything except the grief was a thousand times easier than facing it.

She saw resolve on his face. Grieve when the war was over. They were still in battle. She just hoped one day they actually would be able to live the life they’d always wanted. And not just endure the hardships they stumbled into.

* * *

—

By the time they returned to Washington’s mansion, the roads were nearly impassable. The snow hadn’t stalled even for a minute and the forecast read white for days. A blizzard had struck and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. The ragged group reluctantly left the heated vehicles they’d abandoned to Washington’s garage and hurried through the rapidly building snowdrifts back to the nineteenth-century mansion.

Reyna shivered even when she was inside. A place this old didn’t trap heat in the same way as modern houses. There were strange, chilly drafts. The massive fireplaces were built high to try to combat the heating problems that a house of this size had.

“This is an icebox,” she murmured as she put her hands up to the fireplace. “Maybe we should have stayed in the city.”

Beckham just kissed her forehead and retreated upstairs. The rest of his inner circle followed him. Reyna almost headed after them, but one, she was too cold, and two, she knew that even though she and Becks were a team…he enjoyed his privacy. They were his people. Not hers. Not yet.

The door to the basement creaked open and Jodie appeared, dashing across the sitting room. She threw her arms around Reyna. “Thank fuck you’re back.”

Reyna laughed. “Miss me?”

“A day felt like an eternity in this house with nothing but vamps and Gabe as a shadow. He’s a pretty fucking hot shadow, but I didn’t need one.” Jodie gave her a pointed look.

“Better to be safe than sorry.”

“If you leave me with him again when he’s feverish to be out with y’all, I might have to kill you.”

“Seems fair.”

Jodie sobered. “Tye radioed in when he got close enough. I heard what happened at the other safe houses.”

“Yeah.”

Reyna didn’t want to think about that. Those bodies. All that blood. The message. She shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold. No, she definitely didn’t want to relive that memory anytime soon. Harrington had done this on purpose and with her in mind.

“Stop that,” Jodie ordered.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. I know you well enough to know when you’re blaming yourself.”

“Did Tye tell you about the message?”

“Yes. Harrington’s toying with you. It’s what he does. You know that.”

“I do. But it doesn’t change how I feel about it, Jodie.”

“If anyone knows that, I do. I fucking had blood drawn today while you were gone.”

“I know. I know.”

“I’m tired of Harrington messing with us. He wants us to fall apart. We’re not going to, okay?”

“You’re right.”

“Plus, Zoya said she’d help me find June.”

Reyna’s eye lit up. “She did?”

“Yep. She said she could take a look for me after she breaks through the last code for the final safe houses.”

“That’s great. I’m sorry I didn’t think to help before this. There was just so much going on…”

“Hey, whatever,” Jodie said. She waved her hand dismissively. “You’ve got a lot on your mind. Like vamp boyfriend coming back to life, leading the rebellion, and I don’t know…taking out Harrington?”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Speaking of…how’s vamp boyfriend?” Jodie waggled her eyebrows up and down. “He biting you? There better be some awesome sex.”