Blood Bond

by Shannon K. Butcher

  NOVELS BY SHANNON K. BUTCHER

  THE SENTINEL WARS

  Burning Alive

  Finding the Lost

  Running Scared

  Living Nightmare

  Blood Hunt

  Dying Wish

  Falling Blind

  Willing Sacrifice

  Binding Ties

  THE EDGE

  Living on the Edge

  Razor’s Edge

  Edge of sanity

  Edge of Betrayal

  Rough Edges

  DELTA FORCE TRILOGY

  No Regrets

  No Control

  No Escape

  AND MORE

  Go to www.ShannonKButcher.com for details.

  Blood Bond

  by

  Shannon K. Butcher

  Blood Bond

  The Sentinel Wars, Book Ten

  By: Shannon K. Butcher

  Published by Silver Linings Media, LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by Silver Linings Media, LLC

  ISBN: 978-1-945292-17-0

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author at ShannonKButcher.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art: Dar Albert

  Editing: Julie Finley

  DEDICATION

  For all the readers who didn’t give up on me.

  This one is for you.

  Table of Contents

  NOVELS BY SHANNON K. BUTCHER

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  About the Author

  Dear Reader Letter

  Teaser for Shards of Blood and Shadow

  Books by Anna Argent

  Chapter One

  Justice had encountered a wide variety of scumbags in her line of work, but this kind was her least favorite—entitled, arrogant, self-important assholes who thought they should have whatever they wanted simply because they could afford it. They didn’t care who they hurt so long as the object of their desire was in their greedy, little hands.

  A walking case of ‘roid rage in a suit escorted her past the nurses’ desk, down a bland, beige hallway back to the waiting room.

  While a vacant doctors’ office wasn’t exactly the normal meeting spot for black market dealings, the setup did offer some benefits. The place was a rats’ nest of turning hallways and small rooms. Only the thugs working for Chester Gale knew which room their boss was in, forcing any would-be attackers to check behind door after door for the right one.

  Justice could have turned around and gone back to exam room six where she’d met him moments ago, but her guess was the man in charge had already moved from one whack-a-mole hole to the next, just in case. That’s what she would have done if she had a pile of people looking to kill her.

  Too bad she wasn’t one of the would-be assassins. At least not today.

  If she’d been here to kill the black-market crime boss, God, karma, the fates, or whoever the hell controlled her, would have already forced her to take him down, armed or not. That the entitled asshole still breathed was proof that she still needed the link to dark dealings his scumbag ways could provide.

  The suited thug escorting her reached behind the giant, u-shaped nurses’ station and handed over a clear plastic shoebox.

  Justice retrieved Reba first and checked her Glock to make sure it was still loaded and ready to deliver deadly force. No way was she trusting these goons not to fuck with her only sure way of taking them down.

  Once she was satisfied that Reba was unmolested, she tucked the .40 cal. in the back of her jeans.

  Next, she grabbed the small, leather-clad box and flipped it open. Inside was the majority of her payment in the form of a silver ring. The surface was etched with a chaotic jumble of lines that might have been some kind of bizarre writing, but just as easily have been the scars of a garbage disposal gone rogue.

  She had no idea what the ring was for, but now that she had it, she waited for that gnawing itch at the back of her brain to fade, indicating her task was complete.

  It wasn’t. The powers that had sent her here weren’t done with her yet, which worried her. Who knew what the fates wanted if the ring wasn’t it.

  The brown paper sack was next. She peered into it and saw a banded stack of cash. There was no sense in stopping to count it now. If the remainder of the fee she was owed for services rendered wasn’t all there, the only way she was getting the rest was by spilling blood. No amount of cash was worth that kind of trouble—not when her task wasn’t yet complete.

  No rest for the wicked.

  The meaty thug held the empty plastic shoebox and stared at her with a blank expression only hard drugs or incurable stupidity could create. “We’re done here.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a dismissal.

  Justice tucked the ring in the bag of cash and shoved it in her back pocket to leave her hands free. Again, just in case. Then she turned and went past an empty check-out desk and down the hallway that led to the waiting room. She caught a fleeting glimpse of another guard near the door she’d come through earlier. He was poised inside the last room along the hall, peering through a gap no wider than a pencil. The space behind him was dark, and the only reason she’d been able to see him at all was because a glitter of fluorescent light from the hallway caught his eye.

  She didn’t stare. There was no point in it. She knew this guy was here to make sure she left—under her own steam or by force. The dead look in his eye said he wouldn’t really care which.

  At least he wasn’t bloodthirsty, like some of the assholes she dealt with.

  Her escort punched in a code on the electronic lock and opened the door that led into the waiting room.

  “Next,” he said, bored.

  Justice gripped her sack of loot tighter and kept walking. The itch at the base of her skull was starting to buzz.

  Whatever the fates had sent her here for, it was close.

  When the thug saw who waited, his tone perked up. “Boss has been waiting all day for you. Quite a lucky find you have there.”

  Justice walked past the young man whose turn it was to offer up his prize for cash. He still had pimples and hadn’t yet managed to fill in the patches in his scraggly beard. A baseball hat hid his eyes, but his eager grin was unmistakable. “When you’re as good as I am, you don’t need luck.”

  “She’d better be the real thing, or that fucking grin will be missing a few teeth.”

&
nbsp; “She is,” said the young man, all confidence and swagger.

  It wasn’t until Justice passed him that she saw what it was he’d brought to sell the entitled scumbag Chester Gale.

  A little girl trailed behind the punk, sucking her thumb. She was too old for the habit, maybe four or five, but the stark look of fear on her tear-stained face made the childish trait completely forgivable.

  Her blond hair was a mess, and her big blue eyes stared up at Justice in a silent plea for help.

  The buzzing in the back of Justice’s skull turned to a full-out roar. Jet engines and rock concerts screamed through her head, nearly driving her to her knees.

  This child was the real reason she was here trading trinkets with men who were best used for fertilizer.

  Justice was no hero. She had done a lot of shitty things in the ten years of her life she could remember. Chances were she’d done even more before that. But never once had she looked the other way while entitled assholes traded money for terrified children, screaming fates or not.

  She couldn’t stand the thought of adding that to her long list of sins.

  Instincts took over before a coherent plan could form in her mind. As she passed the man, she scooped up the little girl in one arm while pulling Reba from her waistband.

  The child let out a startled squeak, then started to wail. The punk who’d been ready to sell her spun around to see what had happened to his prize. The armed guard pulled his weapon and aimed it at Justice.

  Before the barrel of his handgun had steadied, Justice fired a round in the center of his meaty head.

  Red pulp blasted open the door behind him so hard it banged against the wall. The child-stealing fucker in front of her had his own weapon in hand now.

  She acted without hesitation. The only thought in her mind now was how to get her and the girl out of here alive. Whoever else had to die to make that happen, well, just add them to the pile of bodies in her wake.

  Justice squeezed the trigger of her Glock again just as the punk fired.

  She felt a punch of force shove her back, but no pain. It would come. Soon. Been there, done that. She had only a few seconds before it did.

  The little girl screamed louder. A ragged, gaping hole appeared under the punk’s left eye as Justice’s bullet tore through flesh and bone. He crumpled where he stood, like a puppet with the strings cut.

  She backed up toward the exit. Her car was parked outside. All she had to do was make it that far. Ricardo, her beloved Maserati, would do the rest of the heavy lifting.

  The armed thug previously in hiding had come out to do his job. Only a couple of seconds had passed since she’d snatched the kid, but it was long enough for him to have steadied his aim.

  “Stop,” he said, his tone as cold and still as a frozen pond.

  She didn’t waste her breath. Nothing she could say would change what he was about to do.

  Justice spun around so that she was between the gun and the girl, then sprinted out the door, toward Ricardo.

  Another round slammed into her body, hitting just above her hip. Her leg seized up for only a split second, but it was long enough to send her sprawling onto the sidewalk.

  Late afternoon sunlight hit her face. Cold winter air swirled around her head. The little girl had rolled away and was screaming even louder. The building was by itself, separated from the nearby restaurants and gas stations—likely by design. Traffic slid by a few hundred feet away, but if anyone noticed what was happening, she couldn’t tell. No one blew their horn or screamed for someone to call the police.

  Blood wet her clothes now, and the pain of her wounds began to slip in between the cracks in her adrenaline. She’d been shot before. She knew what was coming.

  But not yet. Just a few seconds more…

  The door had shut behind her—a single, thin sheet of glass between her and the next round aimed her way.

  The armed guard stepped close enough to the door that she could see his thick head and shoulders through the tinted glass. Her hands were shaking now, but Reba would make up in power what Justice lacked in aim. Her target was big and close.

  And a fraction of a second too slow.

  Justice fired again. Glass shattered. She didn’t pause long enough to see if her aim had been true. If it wasn’t, she was already as good as dead.

  She scrambled to her feet, grabbed the little girl’s arm, and bolted for her car on unsteady legs.

  Ricardo welcomed her with a heated embrace. Sun-warmed leather seats cushioned her fall as she tumbled in behind the wheel. The little girl was unceremoniously pulled in over Justice’s lap, dumped over the console, and into the passenger’s seat.

  “Get on the floor,” Justice barked, just as the first wave of searing pain washed over her.

  She gritted her teeth and punched the ignition on her Maserati.

  Blood welled from her abdomen. More slickened the seat beneath her. Already she could feel her strength fading.

  She had to get the girl away from here—as far away as she could manage. Nothing else mattered, not even the lingering itch at the base of her skull compelling her to do whatever the fates demanded of her next.

  As far as she was concerned, the fates could go fuck themselves.

  With one hand pressed against her abdomen to slow the bleeding, she gunned the engine and tore out into early rush hour traffic.

  The little girl cowered on the floorboards, sucking her thumb between snuffling sobs. Spit and snot leaked down her face to mix with her terrified tears.

  “Everything is okay now,” Justice lied in a ragged tone. “What’s your name?”

  The pain had reached its zenith and was currently burning through her guts like fire.

  The child stared up with big, blue eyes and mumbled something around her thumb.

  “Take your thumb out and try again.” Justice did her best to keep her voice gentle, but she knew the pain had given it a growly edge.

  The girl did as she was told. Her pudgy hand gripped the seat and left behind a smear of slobber across the handstitched leather. “Pepper.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  Pepper’s face melted into the kind of agony only death could create. “He hurt mommy.” Once the words left her mouth, the thumb went right back in and she started rocking as she cried.

  Justice didn’t dare ask about the girl’s father. She didn’t have the strength to torture the poor kid all over again.

  The itch at the base of her skull began to spread and strengthen.

  Whatever it was that made Justice do the things she did had the worst timing. Didn’t the fucking fates know that she was bleeding, hoping to outrun armed killers, and toting a child who was probably a recent orphan? A child who had some value to a man who valued only a very narrow subset of objects?

  Ancient, magical objects.

  How the hell did a kid barely out of diapers qualify?

  Justice had no idea.

  Another wave of dizziness spun her head, and she knew she was running out of time. She briefly thought about going to a hospital but knew the fates wouldn’t allow it. They never had.

  She was going to have to keep going and hope Ricardo kept her from running into any of the cars crowding around her.

  The itch began to burn. She was going the wrong way. Wherever it was she was being compelled to go, it wasn’t north.

  Justice took the next exit heading east. As soon as she did, the burning at the base of her skull faded. Her guts still felt like they were being ripped out through her navel, but even that was dying down to a manageable level.

  It was her growing weakness that scared her.

  If she ran off the road and killed the girl or passed out and left her stranded on the highway, things could go from bad to worse.

  Miles slid by in a foggy daze as Justice tried to get her shaken brain to come up with a plan.

  Pepper had worn herself out crying and was now curled up on the floor, asleep. Sundown was coming soon, and w
ith it, all the snarly, fanged Synestryn would come out to play. She was bleeding enough to know they’d come sniffing around for a bite.

  She had to get rid of Pepper before that happened. But who could she trust to take the kid off her hands?

  Ronan’s beautiful face entered her mind as if begging her to reach out to him. Instead, she shoved the image away with a feral snarl.

  Even if she did want to contact him—which she didn’t—there was no way she could. It’s not like she had his phone number. He was the one who chased her, not the other way around.

  And if she did find him, then what? No way was she handing a child over to a man who drank blood.

  She wished she had a friend—just one single person she could trust.

  But friends weren’t something Justice could have. The one time she’d tried had taught her that lesson so painfully, she’d never tried again. The only things she could count on were her gun and her ride. So she, Reba and Ricardo were going to go find Pepper some help before she ended up in a place worse than whatever Chester Gale had in store for her.

  Justice searched her mind for a solution, but her head was foggy and her body was fading. The bleeding had slowed, but she couldn’t tell if that was because her wounds had begun to close, or if she was almost out of blood.

  Thoughts of Ronan filled her thoughts again, and this time she was too weak to shove them away.

  She could feel him somewhere east of here. She didn’t understand how she could tell where he was—maybe because he’d drank so much of her blood a few weeks ago—but his presence was like a glow against her skin she could feel but not see.

  To him, she was prey. Food. And yet she couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind. How screwed up was that?

  Finally, when she was too dizzy to drive straight, even with Ricardo’s help, she exited the highway at a rest stop miles from anywhere interesting.

  Two semis sat in the upper lot for truckers. The lower area was for smaller vehicles, and completely empty. Justice parked near the bathroom and simply breathed as she waited for someone trustworthy to stop. No way was she handing Pepper over to a couple of truckers who might or might not be involved in human trafficking. It was better to wait for a family with kids or an elderly couple to come by and hand over Pepper to them.