Unchained: Blood Bond Saga: Volume One

by Hardt, Helen;

  “What’s it like?”

  “It changes as the relationship grows, but when you first fall in love, it’s amazing. It’s like the other person consumes you. You think about her all the time, want to be with her all the time.”

  Sounded pretty familiar. “And how does it change?”

  “The passion dies a little after you’ve been together for a while, but other things grow in its place.”

  “Like what?”

  River shook his head. “I don’t really know how to explain it.”

  Bill smiled. “What River can’t explain is that love can’t be defined, Dante. It’s different for every person and every relationship.”

  “Then how will I ever know?”

  “You’ll know,” Bill said. “And if what you’re experiencing with Erin is truly a blood bond, it will lead to love.”

  “Then how is it different from having a fated mate?”

  “Because it’s a physical bond, not just an emotional one. Fated mates can live without each other, though they may never find true happiness. A blood bond between a human and a vampire is a physical bond, and I don’t mean physical just in terms of a physical relationship. It’s physical in that you require each other to live.”

  “You’re seriously telling me that if I want Erin to live, I have to feed from her.”

  “Yes.”

  “How am I supposed to convince her of this? She’ll think I’m mental. She’s a nurse, for God’s sake. She’ll have the white coats after me before I can take the first taste.”

  “You could glamour her,” River suggested.

  I shook my head adamantly. “No. First of all, I can’t. I tried once before, but she didn’t go under.”

  “You’re probably just not good at glamouring yet,” Bill said. “You haven’t had enough practice.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But here’s the thing. I don’t want to glamour her. She means too much to me. I don’t want to violate her in that way.”

  “Glamouring isn’t a violation,” Bill said. “It’s for the human’s own good so she won’t remember what happened and be scarred by it.”

  “Bullshit. It’s for our own good. To keep us safe. If they found out about us, we’d all be in danger. There aren’t enough of us.”

  “He’s got a good point, Bill,” River agreed.

  “Besides, if this is true, and Erin must feed me or die, I can’t rely on glamouring. This is a life bond, apparently.” And then something else struck me. “What if I die? And she can’t feed me? What happens then?”

  “Not likely,” Bill said. “We have a longer life span than humans.”

  “Only by thirty or so years,” I said. “And there are no guarantees. We’re not immortal. We can get hit by cars just like anyone else.”

  “I don’t know,” Bill admitted. “From what I can tell, it’s a lifelong bond.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head. “If it arose as a defense mechanism for humans, why do they die if they don’t feed their vampire? Why wouldn’t the vampire die?”

  A brick landed in my gut. Bill hadn’t said I wouldn’t die. He’d only said that Erin would.

  “If I had more information,” Bill said, “I’d give it to you. This is all theory, but it makes sense given what you’ve described.”

  “Not the fact that the human dies,” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense at all if it’s a defense for humans.”

  “He’s right, Bill,” River said.

  “All I can tell you is the theory,” Bill said. “I’ll print all this stuff out so you can read it. Or do you still have an email account, Dante? I can just forward it to you and you can read it online.”

  An email account. Yeah, checking email had been the first thing on my mind after being tortured and held captive for years and then finding myself in a blood bond with a woman I hardly knew but couldn’t stay away from.

  “Just print it out, please.” I sank my head into my hands. “Why me, of all people? Right after I come back?”

  Bill sighed. “I don’t know, Dante. I just don’t. But nothing else can explain what happened to your nose.”

  “And the fact that you’re so drawn to Erin,” River said.

  I stood and paced. Even now, I ached for Erin, wanted to go to her, kiss her, taste every part of her…especially the life force within her veins. But how could I explain all this to her when I couldn’t even explain it to myself?

  “What happens if I don’t take Erin’s blood? Does she get sick? Because the last time I saw her, she was perfectly healthy.” Perfectly and beautifully healthy. I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without her in it. If I had to take her blood for her to survive and live a long life, I’d figure out a way do it. I didn’t have a choice.

  Why? Why was this happening? I’d vowed to protect Erin from everything, including from me. How could I protect her from me when she needed me to survive?

  “I don’t know,” Bill said. “I’ll try to find more information.”

  I turned and stared at my grandfather and my cousin. “Do the two of you have any ideas how I’m supposed to tell this woman that I have to take her blood to save her life?”

  Then a thought speared itself into my head. A thought that devastated me.

  “What if it’s not me? What if I’m not the one she’s bonded to?”

  “What do you mean?” Bill asked.

  I crunched my hands into fists, rage overtaking me. “Someone has been feeding on her. I saw bite marks on her thigh.”

  Chapter Three

  Erin

  After a long shift, I went home and took a quick shower. The number for Juan Mendez, Jr. had been a wrong number, probably entered incorrectly. I called Jay quickly and put him on it, and he said he’d call as soon as he found the correct number.

  Now, I got dressed in a casual skirt and T-shirt. I was going to the hospice to talk to Mrs. Moore’s husband.

  I had no idea what kind of shape he’d be in, but I had to try.

  The drive to the hospice was depressing. Oh, it was a gorgeous day, but hospices were horrible places—places where people went to die. I got my fill of death as an ER nurse, and I wasn’t looking forward to staring it in the face today.

  So why should I?

  My neck chilled as I hung a U-turn in the middle of my drive. Why was I doing this, exactly? Why did I feel so strongly that Mrs. Moore had information for me?

  Because of her association with Dr. Bonneville’s mother—or someone who might possibly be Dr. Bonneville’s mother.

  But why did I care?

  So her mother was also a doctor. So Dr. Bonneville hadn’t published anything in medical journals.

  So what?

  Why was this even any of my business? As long as Dr. Bonneville did her job well, even if she did make life miserable for those who worked with her, who was I to criticize? Or care?

  I couldn’t face the hospice today. Suddenly, learning more about Dr. Bonneville didn’t seem all that important, and honestly, I wasn’t sure why it ever had been. Lucy, Steve, and the rest of my friends just took her for what she was—a gifted physician who had no gift for dealing with people.

  Still…she had asked me to have coffee after we’d lost Howard Dern, the heart attack. The conversation hadn’t been anything memorable, but she’d reached out to me.

  Not important. In fact, nothing was as important as where I stopped my car.

  Right in front of the old Heartsong B and B.

  Dante’s house.

  He was here. I could feel it—that familiar tug that drew me toward him.

  How had I gotten here? I was thinking about Mrs. Moore and then Dr. Bonneville.

  Highway hypnosis. All medical professionals were aware of how a person could drive to a certain location, respond to external events in a safe manner, without having any memory of consciously getting there.

  Usually highway hypnosis was a response to driving to and from work or some other place a person went
to regularly.

  Me? I went to Dante Gabriel’s.

  I couldn’t blame him for running out on me the last time. He’d gotten a text, and I’d convinced him to look at it. What had I been thinking? If he’d ignored the text, as he’d wanted to, I’d finally know what it felt like to make love with him.

  Have sex, Erin. You would have had sex with him.

  I closed my eyes and drew in a breath. I’d driven to his home without meaning to, without any conscious memory of doing so. Then I’d thought of the act as making love, not having sex or fucking, which it would have been.

  Love.

  I’d never been as drawn to a man as I was to Dante Gabriel, despite the fact that everything I knew about him was negative. I’d caught him in the act of vandalism. He’d left me hanging more than once.

  Why was I chasing him? This wasn’t me. Not at all. I didn’t chase men, not even men as gorgeous and intriguing as Dante Gabriel.

  I turned the key in the ignition, restarting the engine.

  I was so out of here. I was exhausted after a long shift, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with Dante.

  As I put the car in gear, I looked up and gasped. Dante was standing by my car, looking in the window. I pressed the button to open it.

  “Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  I wished I knew. “I’m not sure, actually.”

  “Do you…want to come in?”

  I ached to reach out and touch him through the open window. He looked so gorgeous, his hair a tumbling mass, his eyes nearly black, his cheeks and chin covered in stubble, his full lips so…kissable.

  My whole body was aware of his nearness, his closeness. My skin was tight and prickly, and my pulse raced in my neck.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Never had I been so aware of my heartbeat.

  Put your foot on the gas, Erin. Just go. He didn’t invite you here. Go.

  “What’s wrong?” Dante asked, his brows arched. “Are you feeling okay?”

  I feel like I’ll never be complete unless we finish what we started the other day. “Of course. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You look a little pale.”

  “I always look pale.”

  His brow furrowed. He seemed genuinely concerned. “Please. Come in. Let me take care of you.”

  “Take care of me? I’m fine. Look. I’m a little embarrassed, Dante. I didn’t come here on purpose.” Yeah, that made me sound sane. “I mean… I don’t know what I mean.”

  He opened the car door. “Come on. Come in. River’s here. I want you to meet my grandfather.”

  “Oh!” God, I’m so self-involved. “How is your sister? Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, she’s good. It was something else that River…needed.”

  “Oh.” None of my business. That part was obvious. “Look. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I had a long shift. I’m going to go home.” I reached for the door.

  But Dante caught my hand and pulled me out of my car. “Don’t leave. Really. I want you to meet my grandfather. It’s important.”

  “Why is it so important that I meet him?”

  “I’ve told him all about you.”

  “You have?” I was slightly elated inside. Okay, majorly elated.

  “Yeah. Come on. Please. I’ll even make you breakfast.”

  “You will? Somehow you’ve never struck me as a guy who cooks.”

  “Well…I’ll throw a piece of bread in the toaster.” He smiled.

  And I knew I was going into that house to meet his grandfather. I could not resist his smile.

  I could not resist anything about him.

  God help me.

  I’d never felt anything like this. Maybe it was love. It was totally different from what I’d felt with Cory, totally different from anything I’d felt…ever. It was all-consuming, all-encompassing passion and desire and need for another person.

  Could I really have fallen in love in a matter of weeks? With a man I still knew next to nothing about?

  He took my hand, and sparks ignited through me.

  We walked slowly up the cobblestone path leading to the ornate doorway. He opened the door and motioned for me to walk in ahead of him.

  River sat in the living room next to a silver-haired man. No, man wasn’t the right word. Gentleman was. He was handsome in a debonair way.

  “Hi, Erin,” River said. “Nice to see you.” Though his tone was more, “what are you doing here?”

  The older man didn’t seem at all surprised to see me, which I found slightly odd.

  Dante cleared his throat. “Bill, this is Erin Hamilton. Erin, my grandfather.”

  He called his grandfather Bill?

  Mr. Gabriel—Bill—stood, holding out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Erin. Dante has told us a lot about you.”

  My cheeks warmed. Dante didn’t know much about me, other than what I looked like naked. And ditto on my end. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  He sat back down and patted the cushion next to him. “Won’t you sit down?”

  “I promised Erin a piece of toast,” Dante said.

  “Oh, it’s okay. I’m not that hungry.” Still, I stayed standing.

  “Don’t be silly,” Bill said. “Let Dante bring you something. You must be hungry. You probably just got off work, right? Dante said you work the night shift.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Then sit down, please.”

  I took a chair next to the sofa. For some reason, sitting right next to Dante’s grandfather felt…strange somehow. I wasn’t sure why.

  I put my purse on the floor and twiddled my fingers.

  “How’s Jay?” River asked.

  “He’s fine. I’m sure you saw him more recently than I have.”

  “Actually, no,” River said. “I took a few days off. But I have a lot to talk to him about.”

  River didn’t look happy. Had he and Jay had a falling out? Not that I’d heard.

  “How’s Emilia doing?” I asked.

  “She’s fine,” River said, his lips flattened into a line.

  Okay, Jay and Emilia were obviously not good topics of conversation. I could bring up Lucy and the date River had with her this evening, but that would be awkward. Not that this whole thing wasn’t already awkward.

  I opened my mouth and then shut it, and—

  Crash!

  Chapter Four

  Dante

  The glass slipped right out of my hand.

  My nerves were frazzled.

  Blood pooled on the ceramic tile floor. I’d only wanted a few sips. The need for Erin was consuming me, and I’d thought some steer blood might stave off the desire.

  I’d been shaking. I still was. Now I had a mess to clean up. A mess that, if Erin saw it, would no doubt remind her of the mess she’d found the night we met.

  River came running into the kitchen. His eyes widened when he saw the red puddle. “Shit, Dante.”

  “I know. The glass slipped out of my hands. You need to keep Erin out of here.” I threw a towel over the mess and sopped up what I could. Then I threw the soiled rag into the trash. I’d gotten a lot of it, but there was still quite a bit of blood on the floor.

  “She wouldn’t go barging into someone else’s kitchen.”

  “Yeah, she would. She’s an ER nurse. Emergencies are her specialty. Keep her out—”

  “What happened?” She stood in the doorway, her light-green eyes wide. “Did you cut yourself? Let me see.”

  “He’s fine.” River pushed her away, turning her back toward me.

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  Take a bite from your own flesh, and offer yourself to me.

  Not now!

  Quick as I could, I turned and ripped into the flesh of my forearm with my fangs. My head still turned, I said, “I just cut myself with the bread knife.”

  She yanked her arm away from River and turned back toward me. “That’s a lot of blood, Dante. Yo
u’d better let me have a look.”

  “I told you, he’s fine,” River said. “We’ve got this under control.”

  “You’re nuts.” Erin walked toward me.

  I clamped my mouth shut and willed my fangs to retract.

  I didn’t have much luck.

  She touched my arm, igniting sparks in me. Every time her fingers grazed me, I felt the oceans of blood beneath her skin, the warmth of it, how it felt as it moved within her. Keeping the emotion coiled tightly in my gut zapped all of my strength.

  “That doesn’t look like a knife wound to me, Dante. Something bit you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Do you have a dog?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’s what it was,” River said. “The neighbor’s dog.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so? Where’s the dog? We need to make sure he’s had all his shots. Trust me, you don’t want to have rabies injections in the stomach.”

  “He went back over to the neighbor’s house.”

  Erin couldn’t possibly be buying any of this. Wouldn’t they have heard a dog? And the dog just came in, bit me, and trotted back home?

  She turned to me. “Why didn’t you just say it was a dog? Why the lie about the bread knife?”

  Seriously? She believed it? Then again…she had caught me vandalizing her blood bank, and she hadn’t batted much of an eye. Part of the blood bond, maybe?

  “I was…embarrassed,” I said, keeping my lips as close to closed as possible.

  “There’s no reason for that. I could tell you some really embarrassing things that I’ve seen in the ER, and dog bites aren’t among them. Let’s just say some people come in with interesting things lodged in interesting places.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Thankfully she was too interested in my arm to see my teeth.

  “You’ve lost quite a bit of blood, Dante.” She eyed the floor. “Are you feeling light-headed at all?”

  “No. I feel fine.” Since the blood on the floor wasn’t my blood.

  “That’s good. You’re obviously in great shape. Let me clean this up for you.” She turned to River. “Do you have any bandages? And if not, just some rags will do. I just need to get pressure on this so the bleeding will stop.”