Read Octavia's War for Free Online

him a few days after Severo had brought her back to the compound and installed her in his bedroom for Ángel to figure out Octavia wasn’t what she appeared to be. She portrayed the role well. Once he had started to wonder why she was there, though, watching her closely had convinced him she was not the bimbo everyone else had assumed she was. It was a very careful, well-maintained role but a mask, nevertheless.
    Now he was thinking about it with the eyes of truth, Ángel could acknowledge that the wanting had always been there. He had just refused delivery.
    Now it was in him, wreathing his thoughts, demanding attention in a way that made his body ache and his heart work overtime.
    Was Octavia going to get him killed? Would he be distracted by this and make a deadly error?
    So he touched her shoulder to draw her attention because he couldn’t think of a way to speak that didn’t involve touching her.
    When she looked at him he marveled all over again at the limpid quality of her eyes. They were a proper Mexican black, yet they were a perfect almond shape. A man would mistake her for being a plaything, if he overlooked her firm little chin and the clear line of her jaw. The chin was often up, the eyes narrowed.
    His body warmed at the idea of getting closer to her fiery qualities.
    “Let’s go inside and see what we can find,” he suggested.
    Octavia took a deep breath. Her gaze shifted away from him, as if she needed to be not looking at him to speak. “Yeah, let’s.”
    * * * * *
    Bear stomped into the kitchen and over to the sink to wash his hands. The kitchen seemed to shrink around him, even though his shoulders weren’t as wide as Ángel’s. He was taller, though.
    Octavia lowered the tequila bottle that Ángel had passed to her, watching Bear. Remmy , she corrected herself.
    Ángel ate the last mouthful of tamale and wiped his fingers on the cloth on the table and sat back, his gaze on Bear, too.
    Bear turned and leaned against the sink. “Guess you’ll be having some questions,” he said. His accent was mildly southern, making his voice slow and deep.
    Octavia lifted the bottle and drank deeply. It burned going down and the warmth spread immediately. “I watched you die,” she said flatly. “Ángel buried you. You were really, truly dead. So how the fuck are you standing there?”
    “That’s an easy one,” Bear said. “I didn’t die because I’m dead already.”
    Octavia frowned. That didn’t make any sense at all.
    “You’re not a ghost,” Ángel said flatly.
    “You are right, my friend. I am not a ghost.”
    “Then…?” Octavia prompted.
    “I am a vampire.”
    * * * * *
    Octavia pushed her hair out of her face and reached for the bottle again. It was nearly empty and she had watched Ángel crack the seal, so between them, they had finished the entire thing.
    Ángel pushed the bottle closer to her and she grabbed the neck and drank. Bear —Remmy—had refused to touch the stuff. “I regret, I cannot. At moments like these, a fine drop of whiskey wouldn’t go astray yet even that is beyond me,” he’d said when Ángel had first offered him the bottle.
    So she and Ángel had drunk it themselves.
    “Let me get this straight,” Octavia said. “Ghosts are real. Vampires are real. The things that carved up the men back in Manuel Benavides are from another place beyond Earth. They make Severo look reasonable and sane in comparison and they’re now chasing us. That’s the major points, right?”
    “You’re forgetting the bonding thing,” Ángel added.
    Remmy hadn’t moved from his easy posture against the sink. His arms were still crossed. Just that unmoving stance alone said he was different. A real human would have had to move by now, just to iron out kinks and get the blood moving. He had been standing there for at least an hour. The sun was up and the little kitchen was growing warmer by the minute.
    Octavia brought her mind back to what Ángel had said. She didn’t have to