Bonded by Blood (Night Shadows Book 5)

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2020 Rose Wulf

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-0219-3

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Melissa Hosack

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  In loving memory of my friend, Terri, who lost her battle with cancer in February 2020.

  She was a light of positivity and hope, full of love for her family, friends, and furbabies, and she left this world far too soon.

  I wish I had gotten to spend more time with you, Terri.

  BONDED BY BLOOD

  Night Shadows, 5

  Rose Wulf

  Copyright © 2020

  Chapter One

  “I don’t understand, Mother,” young Brianna Wheeler said, in a language mankind no longer knew the name of. She was neither a “Brianna” nor a “Wheeler” then, either, but in all the millennia that had passed she no longer remembered her birth name. “What about Uncle? Shouldn’t we wait for Uncle?”

  Her mother gave her shoulder a sharp push with her free hand, firmly encouraging her to continue moving forward. “No, we should not. Uncle won’t be coming with us. He’s dead.”

  “What? No!” But there wasn’t time to grieve. The humans were upon them again, and they’d brought witches. Brianna had no choice but to do as her mother bid her and run, another lifetime’s possessions mostly lost or crammed into a single satchel. It wasn’t the first time they’d been found and chased from their attempt at a home. She didn’t understand why the humans despised them so much simply for existing. It wasn’t her fault she and her family had been cursed. It was humans who had made them the monsters they were.

  “Never again,” her mother vowed as they slipped into the shadows and put the murderous village behind them. “I will never allow this to happen to us again.”

  “Brianna!” The call that startled Brianna out of the ancient memory was accompanied by a rather obnoxious handclap mere inches from her nose.

  Brianna leaned away from the offensive hands and narrowed her eyes at the young human woman responsible. “Was that necessary?”

  “Apparently,” Kendall Wheeler, twenty-six sometimes going on thirteen, responded with dramatically arched brows. “You were spacing. Like, big time. Or am I boring to you now?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you not to be so dramatic?” Brianna asked, knowing the rhetorical question would fall on deaf ears. “I apologize. What were you saying?” She really hadn’t meant to space out—it wasn’t something she was known for in general.

  Kendall sighed. “Nothing important. I was just curious if that werewolf pack is still in the area. Every time I think about it, I’m surprised Trista let them stay.” Kendall took a breath and twisted around on the couch, propping her elbows on the arm of the sofa, entirely facing Brianna. “Or has she killed them all?”

  Brianna fought the urge to roll her eyes. “She has not killed them all, Kendall,” she replied. “As far as I know they’re still there. We’re in an alliance of sorts.” She paused. “Or maybe it’s more like a truce.”

  “Huh,” Kendall said. “So weird.”

  On that Brianna did agree.

  The better part of two years previously, a small group of werewolves had boldly moved into the mountainous region of Northern California barely two hours northeast of Sacramento. The way Brianna had heard the story, there were hardly enough of them to count as a pack at the time. Yet the fledgling Alpha insisted on staying and setting down roots. Every supernatural being—or remotely connected individual—knew the First Family owned Sacramento and, by extension, had laid claim to pretty much the entire state of California. Mother’s ego knows no bounds. But that hadn’t scared them away. More surprising, Trista had acquiesced and granted them permission to stay. With certain restrictions, of course.

  Brianna could hardly blame Kendall for wondering how long it would be before Trista changed her mind and ordered the wolves exterminated.

  “Hey, so … I’m bored,” Kendall declared.

  Lifting a single brow at the statement, Brianna said, “Then do something.”

  Kendall straightened, as unable to sit still as she’d always been, and brushed a wave of her wild dirty blonde hair out of her face as she said, “Come outside with me, Bri. This place is stifling.”

  Brianna scrunched up her nose. “No, thank you.” Kendall knew how much she hated going out into the city. The city was what was stifling.

  “Just—” Kendall made a broad gesture with her arms. “I dunno, come shopping with me or something. Stretch your legs a little!”

  “I walk plenty,” Brianna said. “Besides, my lunch is coming.” She could hear Garvin’s footsteps already.

  “Ew, Bri, how many times do I have to ask you to refrain from saying that?” Kendall asked, physically cringing even as the door at the far side of the library eased open.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so squeamish about it,” Brianna replied. “You eat off a plate, I drink out of a glass. What’s the difference?” She turned a calm smile to the healthy young man, a handful of years older than Kendall, as he walked up to her with a serving tray over his hand. Atop the tray rested a single crystal drinking glass, filled most of the way with freshly poured blood. His, from the scent of it. “Thank you, Garvin,” she said as she scooped the glass from the tray.

  Garvin folded the tray against his torso and bowed at the shoulders. “Of course, ma’am.” He glanced to Kendall. “Can I get you anything, Miss Kendall?”

  Kendall waved him off. “Uh, no, I can get myself something. Thanks anyway.” She was quiet until Garvin left, the door closed behind him again. “The difference,” she finally answered, “is that I’m not drinking my waiter’s blood.”

  Brianna lowered her glass, licked her lips, and gave Kendall a pointed look. They’d had this conversation at least a dozen times. “Need I remind you of where your burgers come from? Honestly, Kendall, he’s not a prisoner. He’s a volunteer.”

  “Trista still calls ‘em blood slaves,” Kendall returned.

  “Mother’s stuck in the past,” Brianna said, taking another sip of her lunch. It was a past she didn’t much care to think about, truth be told. They hadn’t always had the luxury of hiring their human associates and her mother didn’t care nearly so much about the value of a human life. It’d taken Brianna a frighteningly long time to get her to stop referring to them as cattle. She still often called them slaves.

  Kendall slumped against the couch, her head falling back. “Still, I guess at least you don’t go out and bite people at random. That is something.”

  “After all the years you’ve lived here, how does it still bother you?” Brianna asked as she drained her glass.

  Kendall gave her her patented duh look. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m only a human, living in a vampire mansion. I only remember, like, a dozen arguments about Turning me if I was going to ‘stick around.’ Can’t see how that could possibly make me uncomfortable ever.”

  Brianna sighed. “Those arguments are long settled. You know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “You I trust,” Kendall said. “Granny Vampire, not always.”

  Brianna cringed, her
face contorting into what was surely best described as a mask of horror. “You’ll never be able to trust her again if she hears you calling her that.”

  Kendall grinned. She always had gotten some perverse joy out of saying things she knew would aggravate Trista. “So now that you’ve finished your so-called meal, can we go out and do something?”

  Are we back to that? “Kendall, I’m really not interested.”

  “You’re never interested,” Kendall argued. She turned and leaned over the arm of the sofa. “Come anyway. For me. Please?”

  Brianna pursed her lips and glanced around her library, obligingly considering the request. She highly disliked venturing into the city, but that didn’t mean she never did it. That didn’t even mean it wasn’t sometimes worthwhile. “Okay,” she relented. “One afternoon. Home for dinner.”

  “Yes!” Kendall popped to her feet with the exuberance of a teenager, a big, ridiculous grin on her face. It was somehow heartwarming and alarming simultaneously.

  ****

  Joseph Pearce rubbed subconsciously at the scar on the side of his throat, only partially hidden by the collar of his suit coat, as he stepped from the office building behind him. Thank God that’s over. He hated having to meet with his lawyer, but every now and then he had to suck it up. It was a necessary evil of owning a successful business chain. Although, in Joe’s opinion, the man had become particularly persistent ever since the home invasion that had nearly killed him. Which hadn’t exactly been an ordinary home invasion.

  Joe chuckled to himself as he started down the busy sidewalk, trying to imagine how the older man might react to the truth of the world around him. Specifically to the fact that his precious practice was nestled right in the vampire capital of the world. The man was a great business lawyer, but he didn’t strike Joe as preternaturally open-minded.

  Joe gave his head a shake and lifted his keys from a pocket as he approached the parking structure that housed his truck.

  He’d learned about the existence of the supernatural when he was barely ten years old. A curious boy visiting his grandparents, whose property backed up to an expanse of protected forest, he’d made a habit of sneaking off to wander the woods. One of those explorations led him to a frightened wolf pup that had been cornered by rattlesnakes. Joe himself hadn’t really understood the levels of danger inherent in the scene. He’d just jumped in, grabbed the pup, and run. He’d run until the hissing had stopped. Until he’d gone and gotten himself thoroughly lost.

  For the rest of his life he would never forget the awe that had flooded him when the wolf who’d eventually found them shifted before his eyes into a woman. She was the pup’s mother, he’d learned, and in return for saving her lost child she escorted him safely home. For the next three years, Joe returned to the forest every time he visited his grandparents, and every time he met up with the she-wolf and her growing son. She told him about the world, things his parents would probably not have approved of him knowing. When his grandparents died, Joe’s father chose to sell the property, and Joe was forced to say goodbye to the wolf family he’d come to love.

  There had to be something wrong with him that even as an adult he preferred to spend his time wrapped up in the world of werewolves and vampires. That was probably why his best friend was a werewolf, and why he’d handed over his family’s old cabin—and of course the surrounding property—to that friend when he’d heard the man needed territory. It definitely had to be why he could set foot in Sacramento after nearly having his throat ripped out by a bitter, apparently rogue, vampire. Any sane man would certainly have re-thought his life choices after that.

  He, on the other hand, needed to find the nearest bulk foods store and buy them out of chocolate bars. Because werewolves were human enough that chocolate didn’t bother them and, most importantly, Whitney was having cravings. Joe could only hope that the pack’s Beta, Jim, hadn’t been pulling his leg. Either way, he’d be dumping the load of chocolate off at the cabin in two days—everything but the Reese’s he intended to buy for himself.

  With the help of his GPS, since he wasn’t overly familiar with the intricacies of Sacramento’s roadways, Joe found a qualified store in a matter of minutes.

  He’d just tossed a giant bag of marshmallows into his cart, thinking perhaps Samantha’s boy might want some S’mores, when a female voice he didn’t recognize spoke up almost directly beside him.

  “Wow, that is a shit-ton of chocolate.”

  Joe turned, one eyebrow partially raised and a smile teasing his lips. “It is,” he said.

  The woman was a handful of years younger than him by his estimation, putting her in her mid-twenties, and stood around five-foot-six. She had a head full of wild, dirty blonde hair that hung past her shoulders and a light in her hazel eyes that matched the grin on her lips. “You definitely need more graham crackers, and at least three more bags of those marshmallows.”

  Joe chuckled. “The S’mores are optional in this case.”

  “S’mores are never optional,” she said. “Are you going to some sort of chocolate party? Did you fall off the chocolate addiction wagon?”

  “Kendall.” The new voice was also female, and from her tone the speaker was a little annoyed. There was something else in that voice, though, underneath the annoyance. Something unexpectedly appealing.

  Joe obligingly adjusted his stance to accommodate the newcomer, noting the girl—presumably named Kendall—did the same with an exaggerated eye roll.

  “I was just making conversation,” Kendall said.

  “That’s not what it sounded like to me,” the second woman replied, narrowing her eyes slightly at her companion before she turned her gaze to Joe.

  Joe drew in a breath as he studied her. She was striking. Breathtaking, even. Only a couple of inches taller than her friend, with long, golden hair weaved back in an intricate braid. Thin wisps framed her slightly pale face. She only appeared to be, at most, two or three years older than Kendall. But Joe knew as soon as their eyes met not to believe that impression. Unlike her companion, this beautiful stranger had the tell-tale black irises of a vampire.

  She was gorgeous, but that wasn’t the only reason his heartrate increased when he looked at her. He hadn’t been face-to-face with a vampire since the day after the attack, more than a year and a half before.

  Her expression softened with a small smile. “I’m sorry if she bothered you.”

  “Jeez, Bri, I’m not a child,” Kendall muttered, scrunching her lips.

  Joe gathered himself and shook his head. “I knew I was opening myself up for an inquisition when I agreed to buy all this chocolate, it’s fine.” He held out a hand. “I’m Joe.”

  When the vampire he’d technically been speaking to hesitated, Kendall jumped in and took his hand. “I’m Kendall. This is Brianna. Please forgive her deplorable manners. She’s a horrible hypocrite.”

  Oh, she obviously enjoyed that way too much. Whatever the story was between these two, Joe found himself incredibly curious. Outwardly, he grinned as his arm fell back to hang at his side. “I think ‘deplorable’ might be a bit of a stretch.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brianna said. She offered Joe a smile, showing only a tiny glimpse of pearly whites. “I have no excuse. For once Kendall’s right.” She held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Joe.”

  In the course of his life, Joe hadn’t been close to many vampires. Not to say he’d never shaken the hands of any, either. He always found himself expecting their skin to be cold, maybe awkwardly clammy. Once again, he was reminded that that wasn’t the case. Her skin was soft, and as warm as anyone else’s. He pushed the thought from his mind as their hands fell apart. “No apologies necessary.” Whatever he might have added died on his tongue with the sudden, incessant buzzing coming from his cell phone. “Ah, excuse me,” he said instead as he lifted the device from a pocket.

  Caller ID said simply Cabin and Joe felt one of his eyebrows raise. He turned partially to the side and put the phone
to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Abort mission!” Jim Roades whispered urgently on the other end of the line.

  Both eyebrows rose now. “What?”

  “Ixnay on the ocolatechay,” Jim said. Joe could practically see him making a swiping motion across his throat with his other hand.

  Barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Joe glanced at the basket laden with an obscene amount of chocolate and said, “Okay, I guess I meant, why? What’s going on? I’ve got a shopping cart full of choc—”

  “Shh!”

  Joe pulled the phone a little away from his ear. Had Jim just hissed? What the hell?

  In his peripheral vision, Joe noticed Kendall saunter off, out of sight. He supposed he couldn’t blame them for not standing around, though he was a little concerned at the twinge of disappointment he felt.

  Jim spoke again in his ear. “Don’t even say the word!”

  Joe reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jim, take a breath. What the hell happened?”

  A beat of silence, punctuated by the distant, muffled sound of an impact probably in another room. A slamming door or something dropped, maybe. Then Jim found his voice, though he kept it at a whisper. “So maybe I hadn’t told anyone I’d asked you to pick up some … stuff,” he started. “I would’ve mentioned it to Adam, but he was out hunting. I thought. We thought. Except it turns out he decided to sneak into the city to get some … you-know-what … for Whitney. Like a surprise. And she’s pissed.”

  Joe tipped his head back to the stare at the high, dull gray ceiling of the warehouse store. “She’s mad about the trip, right?” He phrased the question carefully, just to be safe.

  “Mostly,” Jim said. “Technically.” He paused. “But she’s blaming the cho—stuff. Said she doesn’t ever want to see it or smell it again.”