Read Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6 for Free Online Page B

feel for any cognate, that does not mean it would be the same feeling, Cora, nor are rational motives identical with emotional realities.”
    I shook my head, not understanding. “You don’t even know me. You don’t even care who I am.”
    “Don’t I?” he returned.
    “You’ve never met my friends,” I said. “You don’t know my hobbies. I don’t even think you know my major, or my high school, or my grades, or anything about my family. All you know are a few things that I did.”
    “The other things, they’re minutiae.” He made a dismissive gesture with his fingers. “They’re details about your life. They don’t say anything about who you are or who you will be.”
    “What does, then?”
    “Your actions, of course.” His gaze raked across me. “I know you more intimately than you imagine. You’re the girl who fights with every fiber of her being for the dreams she made into her reason for hanging on to life, even when tempted with wealth and pleasure beyond her imagination. You’re the girl who defeated a djinn and escaped an agnate’s mind-slaves. You’re the girl who looked at the woman who nearly killed her and forgave, completely and instantly, when she understood that the woman had done nothing with intent. You’re the girl who tried to defy her own agnate when she found his terms intolerable to her sensibilities.”
    “And when I tried to refuse to do that one thing, you just about popped off the top of my skull and rummaged around, like it was nothing,” I said, the bitter edges of my words hurting my throat.
    “If I hadn’t, you would have died.” His answer was quiet.
    “Died? Because you would have killed me?” I scoffed, circling behind the sofa.
    “My enemies would have seen to that. If you hadn’t shown up tonight, you would have forfeited the temporary protection the invitations afforded you.”
    “But what if it was only the Adelphoi’s victory that was at risk?” I asked. “Would you have let me walk away then?”
    Dorian looked at me, and I knew he could make me believe anything he said. Why did I imagine that he’d give me the truth?
    But he surprised me. Because he did.
    “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t let you walk away. We have only two choices, Cora. We can reach for heaven or fall to hell.”
    I wanted to shake him in frustration. “What does that have to do with me?”
    His words were heavy. “If I made the selfish choice, the choice that would please you, at the cost of my ideals, it would be that much easier to go against them the next time. And the next time, the breech may not be something that you would choose.”
    “If,” I said. “What does that even mean, if?” It seemed to me like a coward’s word, something that could be used to justify anything.
    “The next time, perhaps I wouldn’t please you. Perhaps I would please my baser instincts instead,” he said evenly.
    I glared at him. How dared he act like he’d been doing me a favor? “You did please yourself, though. You made me go, and that’s what you wanted.”
    Dorian unfolded from his chair and crossed to where I hovered between the sofa and the door. He stood so close that I could feel his legs against my skirt, and I half raised one hand to touch his chest before I caught myself and dropped it again.
    He looked down at me, his eyes hard and bright in the shadows. “No. I didn’t want you merely to go. I wanted you to be happy to be there with me. To be happy to be with me always.”
    Always. I shivered at the finality of the word.
    “I took the least evil path that I could see,” he continued. “I kept you safe. And I worked for the greater good while requiring as little from you as I could.”
    “Requiring little? You want me to have your children!”
    “It won’t be against your will,” he said. He reached out and brushed my cheek with the barest touch of his fingers, and a deep, keening need wound through me.
    “You’ll change my will.” The words were a