Blood Bond

by Shannon K. Butcher

  “Not stupid. Necessary. I’d take back what I did to you if I could, but—”

  “You were starving,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I was food.” A heavy sigh, then a mumbled, “Fucking fates. They’re the ones to blame. They sent me to you that night to be your meal, though I guess to be fair, I let it happen.”

  “Fates?” he asked.

  She waved a hand. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  Justice nodded to the IV. “Can I take this out yet?”

  “I don’t suggest it. That’s the fastest way barring magic to get you back in fighting form.”

  “Fine. I’ll leave it in until we get back to Ricardo.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “My Maserati.”

  “It’s probably already gone.”

  She sat up, expression tight with anger, fists tighter. “Gone?”

  “I had to break a window to reach you. Blood was everywhere. I couldn’t leave it sitting there to draw demons, so I had some gerai come get it.”

  “I don’t know who or what gerai are, but they’d better be damn careful not to hurt my baby.”

  Ronan wasn’t sure how careful two young twenty-somethings would be behind the wheel of a car like that, but he decided to keep that worry to himself. “I’m sure your precious car will be fine. If not, I will replace it.”

  “Where are they taking him?”

  “Him?”

  “Ricardo,” she said, as if here were brain damaged. “Where are they taking my car?”

  “Dabyr.”

  “Your home? Was this all some elaborate trick to get me behind the walls where you could hold me prisoner?”

  If only Ronan had met her under better circumstances, if only he hadn’t hurt her, used her.

  But he had, and now he had to pay the price for his actions, no matter how little control he’d had over them at the time.

  He gathered up his patience and forced it into his tone. “Dabyr isn’t a prison. It’s a safe place. A stronghold against the Synestryn. You’ll be safe there.”

  Another wave of weariness crossed her features and she sagged. “I don’t get to stay in one place. Already the fates are nagging at me to get moving.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wish I knew,” she said with a longsuffering sigh. “All I know is that I get this itch to do things. If I don’t obey, then the itch turns into a burn, and that turns into searing pain. I’ve learned my lesson enough times to know that obedience is the only way to keep from suffering. So that’s what I do.”

  “Which do you do? Obey or suffer?”

  She let out a long sigh. “Depends on my mood.”

  Ronan had never heard of such a thing, but it sounded horrible. To never be in control of your own actions? To never be able to simply choose to be still? His life often sucked, but that, he couldn’t imagine.

  “And these fates?” he asked. “What do they want you to do now?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? All I know is that I need to get back to Ricardo so I can go wherever they want, whenever they want.”

  Ronan nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll take you home, to Ricardo. Then we can figure out what needs to come next.”

  “You can’t get involved,” she said.

  He kept his gaze on her eyes, rather than letting it float down to her sweet breasts, or the mysterious shadows at the cleft of her thighs.

  It had been a long time since he’d had energy to waste on wanting a woman, and he’d never wanted one the way he did Justice. Resisting the need to soak in the sight of her was almost more than he could stand.

  “I already am involved. And until you’re strong enough to go alone, I’ll take you wherever you want.”

  “How do I know you won’t turn vampire on me again?”

  He flinched at the use of the derogatory term but kept his hatred of it to himself. “I gave you my word not to hurt you. If you know anything about our kind, then you know that’s binding.”

  She studied him for a long time, as if sizing him up. Finally, she gave him a single nod. “We’ll try it your way, but only because I’m too woozy to drive. But it’s only fair to remind you that while you made a promise to me not to hurt me again, I didn’t do the same. One wrong move, and I’ll kill you as easily as I did the ten men before you. Understand?”

  Ronan did, and for some reason he couldn’t name, the defeated look on her face broke his heart.

  Chapter Three

  Justice couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this tired. Her whole body ached, and her joints felt like they were made out of spun sugar. One sudden move and she’d shatter.

  She’d nearly died. She would have died if not for Ronan.

  She wasn’t sure if she should thank him for that or curse him.

  The wall of his van held her weary body upright. The rumble of the highway beneath her was a familiar vibration but felt strange when she wasn’t behind the wheel.

  She hoped Ricardo was okay. She had a few more vehicles to serve as backup if something happened to him, but he was her favorite. The way he cupped her body and held her close while he cornered made it possible to pretend he cared, that he was her friend.

  After a few minutes of gathering her strength, she pulled the curtains behind the front seats shut to give herself some privacy. Then she stripped out of her dirty underwear, scrubbed the caked blood away with a wad of baby-scented wet wipes, and dressed in clean jeans and a button-up shirt from her overnight bag. The IV was going to have to come out soon, but she was grateful for it now.

  She didn’t have the energy to drink anything and didn’t think her sloshy stomach would let her do so even if she could.

  That last mission had gone wrong. Goat-fuck wrong. And now she had a little kid to deal with on top of everything else.

  Maybe that’s where the fates were sending her now—to a safe place for Pepper. That would be nice, if such a place existed.

  Then again, with Justice’s luck, wherever they were headed might be the intended end for the little girl’s life—some snarling demon or sacrificial altar. There was simply no way to know how it would end until it did.

  Justice promised herself that if the fates made her hand over the girl to a killer, she wouldn’t watch the outcome. She’d turn her back and keep that sight out of her nightmares. She might not deserve that sliver of luxury after all the shit she’d done, but she’d fight and claw for it all the same.

  The simple act of covering her naked ass and shoving the bloody mess of clothes and used wipes into a trash bag wore her out. She slumped back on the bare vinyl-covered mattress and simply breathed.

  On the other side of the curtain, she could hear the steady drone of the little girl’s voice as she asked a string of questions. Ronan’s deep rumble was patient and kind, despite the fact that this interrogation went on for the better part of an hour.

  He didn’t seem like a monster now. He had once—the night she’d met him, all gaunt, starving and deranged. He’d been chained up, taped up and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey. In the darkness of that basement where he’d been imprisoned for his own good, his blue eyes had literally glowed.

  The eyes of a killer, a monster.

  She couldn’t forget that. Just because he had this strange pull on her, just because she always seemed to know where he was, didn’t mean she should let her guard down. He may have promised not to do to her what he’d done before, but there were many ways to hurt someone besides drinking their blood.

  Justice knew that all too well.

  She checked Reba, who had miraculously ended up in the van—perhaps a peace offering from Ronan. She was all but empty, so Justice fed her the wicked Ranger-T rounds until she was full.

  That made her feel better. More normal.

  The van turned, and the itching in the back of Justice’s skull woke up to tell her they were going the wrong way.

  She pushed aside the thick, black curtains that separated the front and the back of th
e van. Four blue eyes hit her face—two big, innocent and round, two narrow and glowing.

  “How do you feel?” Ronan asked.

  “Fine,” she lied as she knelt between the seats. “But we’re going the wrong way. Ricardo is north of here.”

  “The road north ended. We’ll jog east for a bit, then hit the county road that leads north, to Dabyr.”

  “They have ice cream there,” Pepper added. “And books. Mama likes books.”

  The pained look that crossed Ronan’s face mirrored her own worry. Pepper’s mother was dead. If she hadn’t been, she would have fought the man who’d stolen her. At the very least, she would have contacted the police if she’d lived. Amber alerts would have screeched through phones everywhere, warning the public to be on the lookout for a girl matching Pepper’s description.

  None of that had happened.

  Justice couldn’t bring herself to tell the girl the truth. She wasn’t that strong.

  The itching in the back of her skull intensified until Ronan turned left on a narrow blacktop road. There were no street lights this far out in the rolling rural countryside. A few deer looked their way, their eyes reflecting back shiny silver dots in the dark.

  The forest was winter bare. The sky was thick with stars. The pavement sparkled under the brilliant white headlights. Inside the van was warm, but outside, it was cold enough to squeeze a few stray snowflakes out of the dry air.

  Her coat was too bloody to wear. Pepper didn’t have one, plus, her clothes were smeared with blood.

  How the hell was Justice going to take care of a child, even long enough to take her wherever it was the fates demanded? She didn’t know the first thing about kids.

  Out of nowhere, a hidden memory swelled as it tried to surface. She went still, willing the thought to finish its journey and show her some lost sliver of her past.

  Instead, as always, the sights and smells associated with the memory faded back into the black sea of her unknown history, leaving her aching for something she couldn’t quite touch.

  Ronan was watching her in the rearview mirror. His expression was one of speculation and curiosity.

  “Are you going to tell me what just happened?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw the look of anticipation on your face. I smelled a surge of hope coming from you, followed by disappointment. Something happened, didn’t it?”

  “If it did, I can promise it was none of your business. You’re just the cabbie.”

  He lifted a raven-black eyebrow at that. “I’m more to you than that, and you know it.”

  “Is he your boyfriend?” Pepper asked with a strange giggle, as if the idea was both hilarious and disgusting.

  “No,” Justice snapped a little too loudly. Then more gently, “He’s…a friend.”

  “And a doctor,” Pepper added with a nod. “But he doesn’t wear glasses.”

  Ronan took another turn onto a narrow strip of road that passed through dense trees and brush. Several low evergreens had been planted in neat rows, obscuring what lay beyond even in the dead of winter. There was no street sign or indication that anything was here, but Justice could feel a hum of power all the same.

  About a mile down this lane, a clearing opened to reveal a massive, brightly-lit structure made entirely out of stone and metal. Towering, ancient trees dotted the area to cast the manicured lawn into pools of shadow.

  “This is Dabyr,” Ronan said.

  High stone walls wrapped all the way around the building, which looked like the bizarre love child of a castle and a sprawling hotel. The center section was several stories tall, with two huge wings jutting out from it to shield what was behind. Lights were on in several windows, but they were too far away for her to see more than a warm glow and movement inside.

  Ronan rolled up to a metal gate and turned to face a camera. “I’ve got two guests. Please ask Joseph to meet me at the entrance from the garage with a change of clothes for a little girl, size four.”

  A light near the camera turned green and the thick bars blocking the entrance began to roll open. As soon as he was clear, the gates closed right behind them.

  Justice studied the area, making note of the measures she’d have to take to bust out of here if the need arose. She couldn’t see any obvious guns or weapons on the walls, but there were lots of cameras and plenty of big, serious men roaming the grounds. She didn’t doubt for a second that each one of them was armed, even though she couldn’t see any bulges under their coats.

  As if reading her mind, Ronan said, “You’re free to leave whenever you want. Those walls are to keep things out, not in.”

  “From the looks of it, you all are expecting a fight.”

  “We’re just being careful,” he said, though she could hear the lie in his tone.

  For a moment, she wanted to know what was going on, but then she remembered that she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to care. All she was going to do was pick up Ricardo and maybe find Pepper a coat and shoes so she didn’t freeze off any toes. A barefooted child in winter was the kind of thing that raised too many questions—questions Justice couldn’t answer.

  They pulled into a massive garage—the multi-level kind used at hotels and shopping malls. By her estimation, there were hundreds of cars here. Ronan parked a few slots down from where Ricardo sat, seemingly unharmed.

  Two young men were scrubbing the interior. One was wringing out bloody suds into a five-gallon bucket, and the other was unwinding the hose of a shop vac on the driver’s side.

  The bag of saline dripping into her vein was empty, so she ripped out the IV. Ronan opened the side door just as a drop of blood welled from her arm.

  A faint blue light hit her skin, and when she looked, she saw it was coming from his eyes.

  He swallowed hard, then lifted his gaze from the blood to her face.

  “May I?” he asked as he held out his hand.

  A strange, soft, relaxed feeling washed over her as she stared back at him. He was such a handsome man, but that word was so insufficient to describe him, it was laughable. He wasn’t just handsome, he was beautiful, perfectly formed, temptation incarnate. He was the stuff of fantasies, a walking shiver of pleasure and the answer to all the questions she was too afraid to ask.

  Justice put her hand in his, and even though she knew the act was one of madness, she couldn’t help but enjoy the way her skin felt against his.

  He bent low over her arm. She didn’t realize what he was going to do until she felt the wet heat of his tongue glide gently over her sensitive skin.

  A powerful shiver raced through her and shook her to her core. Tingling warmth swept up her arm and lodged just under her heart. The next breath she took smelled spicy and sweet and gave her a rush of strength she so desperately needed.

  She didn’t know him—not really—but he was so familiar to her. She felt like she should know him, the same way she knew the texture of her hair gliding between her fingers, or the way her own voice sounded in her ears.

  For a woman with no family, friends or ties, that feeling of familiarity was potent.

  He straightened, and held her gaze again, only this time, all she saw in his eyes was an odd combination of hunger and satisfaction.

  “Can I have ice cream now?” Pepper asked from nearby.

  Justice had all but forgotten the child was here, which only served to prove just how off her game she was. She was usually keenly aware of her surroundings and everyone in them, because there was no way to know who might want to kill her. Or who she’d have to kill.

  His touch on her skin lingered. The tip of one finger slid over her skin in a light caress.

  The hair along her arm lifted in response as if each strand was straining to get closer to him.

  She pulled her arm away slowly, grieving over every inch lost. She tore her eyes from Ronan’s, but she could still see him there, his image vivid and fixed in her mind. If she didn’t distract
herself, she was going to reach for him again just to feel his fingers on her skin.

  Justice busied herself with retrieving her things from his van.

  “Thank you for the ride,” she said. “Will you let the person manning the gate know we’ll be leaving now?”

  “But your car isn’t clean yet,” Ronan said. “The blood will draw Synestryn and uncomfortable questions. Why don’t you let Slade and Vance finish detailing your Maserati, and we’ll get Pepper something to wear and something to eat. She needs a proper meal, and it shouldn’t take more than an hour or so to get Ricardo spic and span. We’ll even call someone to replace the window I broke so you won’t freeze to death.”

  Justice opened her mouth to refuse, but what came out was beyond her control. The fates were behind the wheel again, steering her life in the direction they chose. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  That’s when Justice realized that the itch was gone. She was doing exactly what was demanded of her, and it felt amazing, almost like she was free of the shackles that had caged her all her life—at least the part of it she could remember.

  Ronan took Pepper’s tiny hand, leaving Justice to trail behind. As she passed the two young men cleaning Ricardo, one grinned at her said, “Sweet ride. We’ll do pickup duty for you anytime.”

  They looked like brothers, both with squat builds, heavy brows and flattened noses. They were in their twenties and had the air of young men working for an important cause they believed in deeply.

  She wasn’t sure how cleaning a car was an important task, but they went at it as if it were a matter of national security.

  The bloody paper sack that had been filled with cash was in a trash bucket, along with several bills spotted with red. The rest of the money had been stacked neatly inside a clear zipper bag on the hood, along with the ring box. She didn’t know if they’d taken her earnings or put them back, but she was curious to see which it was.

  Were these people thieves? It seemed like the kind of thing she should know, and this was as good a test as any. She didn’t need the cash and had no idea why the fates had demanded she earn the ring. Maybe bringing it here was part of her mission all along. She had no idea.