Page 42 of Bonded By Blood

“Maybe I just know her better than you,” Joe snapped. The words were past his lips before he could think better of them.

Before anything other than mild amusement could twist Jasen’s lips, another vampire joined the conversation. “What the hell happened here?”

Joe turned only a heartbeat before Jasen promptly tossed his captured victim at Seth. “Good,” Jasen said. “You lock him up. He’d probably die on his way to the dungeon if I did it.”

Seth caught the other male by the shoulders, causing the wounded vamp to make a pained sound, but didn’t let go. Instead, he frowned. “Why am I locking him up? Why is he beaten up? Trista’s going to have questions, Jasen. What happened?”

“He tried to kill me,” Joe said. Even he knew Jasen didn’t like talking more than he needed to. He repeated, a little more politely, the explanation he’d offered Jasen.

“And since he took the liberty of going all vigilante,” Jasen said when Joe was done, “maybe we should ask him about it.”

“It’s him,” the vampire said, a little strength in his voice again. “I swear, it’s him! Think about it!”

“Boy.” Jasen’s tone was instantly darker and shorter than it had been before.

The vampire snapped his jaw shut.

Seth heaved a breath, adjusted his grip on the man, and said, “Fine. I see your point. Go cool your head.” He turned around and dragged the vampire off without another word.

Joe swallowed and reached up, gingerly poking at his neck. He winced. Yep. Still hurts. It didn’t hurt as bad, though, so it had probably stopped bleeding.

“You need blood, idiot,” Jasen said.

Dropping his arm back to his side, Joe said, “By now my dinner’s probably waiting for me.” Brianna had said she’d have it brought to them in the library, and he was pretty sure he was running late.

Jasen scowled at him for a long, uncomfortable second. Finally, he tucked his hands into his pockets and started walking. “Let’s go.”

“Huh?”

“The library, dipshit. Start walking.”

Knowing better than to question Jasen’s bizarre behavior, Joe obediently fell into step. They didn’t talk, which didn’t surprise him, and they made short work of the winding walk to the library. The door to the library was shut when they arrived, but that was unsurprising. Joe had quickly realized that most of the doors in the massive mansion were kept shut by default.

Jasen grabbed the knob and swung the door open, gesturing with his eyebrows as if to say, “Well here you go,” with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Joe inclined his head and took a step into the large room, his gaze sliding forward in search of Brianna before his nose—and his brain—registered the smell of spilled blood in the air. Blood, and vomit. He was two steps in when he saw her, sprawled out on the ground, face down, blood all around and staining her dress. Vomit was … everywhere. No… “Brianna!”

He dashed forward, uncaring of the mess, desperate to be sure she was still breathing. “Brianna,” he whispered, thoughtlessly, as he dropped to his knees and carefully rolled her over and into his lap. Only as he brushed blood-and-bile crusted hair from her face did he remember she had to still be breathing, because vampire corpses became gray, wrinkly, and withered as soon as they died. But she was so pale. He hadn’t been able to see that from the doorway.

“Fuck.”

The snarled exclamation cut into Joe’s panicked fog and he looked up, keeping his arms around Brianna. He’d already forgotten about Jasen, but Jasen would have been there when he’d spotted her. If he hadn’t seen her himself, he’d have definitely heard Joe call out to her. And now, for the first time, Joe was sure this was anger he could see on Jasen’s face.

Joe glanced around again, quickly, but aside from the mess nothing jumped out at him. There was shattered glass on the ground around the bulk of the blood, as if she’d dropped her drink. There was another glass on the table beside the nearest chair. Blood. “She needs blood.”

Jasen turned a lip-curled sneer at him. “You think I don’t know that, boy?” He stalked over to the remaining glass and lifted it. “If this blood were any good, she’d have consumed it herself.” He brought it to his nose and drew a deep breath. Then he growled. “Poisoned.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Poisoned? How is that possible?”

Once the glass was returned to the table, Jasen looked around the room. Slowly. “In your case, ignorance is better.” He extracted his phone from a pocket. “Pick her up and get ready. When we run, stay directly behind me. Understand?”

There were a few things he actually didn’t understand just yet, but Joe nodded anyway and adjusted his grip on Brianna’s unconscious body.

“Secure the Queen,” Jasen said to whoever had answered the phone. “Trust no one.” He disconnected without another word, interrupting the person on the other end before Joe could hear more than the baritones of a male voice. Jasen dropped his phone back into his pocket and latched his stare onto Joe’s. “We’ll take her to the safe-room first. Then I’ll leave to get a supply of clean blood.”

Joe had questions, but he simply nodded and pushed to his feet. He held Brianna close to his chest and followed in Jasen’s wake as they started toward the door.

“Keep up, Pearce.”

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