Blood Bond

by Shannon K. Butcher

  Justice was almost out of strength to do anything. If she moved, she was sure she’d start bleeding again. Based on the puddle at her feet, she didn’t think she could lose much more.

  Pepper was still asleep on the floor, curled up in a space the perfect size for her tiny body. Now that she wasn’t screaming, she was adorable, with soft, blond curls and chubby cheeks.

  Whatever those scumbags were going to do with her, Justice was glad she’d stopped it. Maybe saving a little girl wasn’t her usual job, but she didn’t care. If saving an innocent child was her last act on this spinning ball of dirt, then so be it.

  That was the thought that filled her mind as the last of her strength faded and the lights winked out.

  Chapter Two

  Ronan jolted awake, certain that something was wrong.

  The sun hadn’t yet set, leaving him weak and groggy. He searched the small, windowless basement he’d taken shelter in for signs of what had startled him but found nothing. He was alone. There were no sounds of intruders or smells of danger nearby. He was as alone now as he had been when he’d laid down at sunrise to rest.

  He lay motionless on a narrow cot and concentrated on the deep feeling of unease that rippled through his limbs. Had it been just a rare dream? Was this lingering wrongness some strange figment of his sleeping mind?

  He waited to see if the feeling would dissipate, but instead, it grew stronger, deeper.

  The need to get up and move buffeted against his left side, as if whatever had caused his unease was screaming at him from the direction of the setting sun.

  The minutes ticked by in agonizing slowness. His nearly constant hunger swelled as his usual feeding time neared.

  Normally he slept through the worst of the day’s hunger, but he was awake now, too rattled to fall back asleep.

  Just a few more minutes. That was all he had to endure before he could leave and go hunting for the blood he needed to sustain him. He’d already located a young couple nearby who contained the traces of ancient magic he craved.

  His work on Project Lullaby had brought these two together only a few months ago. They were madly in love, and with a bit of effort on Ronan’s part, they would soon be expecting their first child—another life to keep him and his kind from suffering the slow death of starvation.

  The idea that the couple would never have met without him, and that he was taking away their freedom to reproduce as they saw fit, no longer bothered him. There was a time when he would have been loathe to interfere with the free will of blooded humans, but that day was long gone, right along with the deaths of too many of his kind.

  The three races of Sentinels were at war with Synestryn, and Ronan was far too pragmatic to concern himself with what a handful of humans wanted or didn’t want. If he and his kind died off, the Theronai would soon fall. Once their swords were no longer protecting humankind from the influx of hungry demons who used humans as food, then petty concerns like whether or not a single couple fell in love or had a child in their own time would hardly matter.

  Everyone had their place in this war, like it or not. Ronan’s was to ensure that the bloodlines his Sanguinar brothers and sisters needed to survive were strengthened. Cara’s and Doug’s job was to have as many children as possible. In exchange, Ronan would make sure that their family lived long, healthy, happy lives.

  Whether or not they agreed to this arrangement was irrelevant. At least that’s what Ronan told himself whenever his dying conscience let out one of its few remaining gasps of outrage over his meddling. He wished the thing would just die and leave him in peace. Manipulating lives was so much easier without it.

  Another flutter of urgency buffeted his side, and this time, he knew it was no dream.

  Someone was in trouble—someone whose blood bond to him was strong.

  Ronan forced his weak body to move and retrieve his cell phone from his pocket. It shifted around inside his too-loose jeans before his cold, clumsy fingers could corner it.

  He looked at the screen. No calls. No texts. He had email, but it was all offers for products promising harder, longer erections and people wanting to give him millions in exchange for his bank account number.

  He opened the app that showed him the location of all known Theronai, Slayers and Sanguinar near him. Nicholas had created the program to help foster cooperation between the races, but with so many people now at Dabyr, there were only a handful of Sentinels still outside of the fortress walls.

  Ronan saw only three dots on the map that spanned from the eastern edge of Kansas City to the western side of Columbia. Two of them were moving along I-70, east of him, and the other was curving along rural roads, heading north toward home. All of them were Theronai, and none of them had called to ask for help. Not only that, but none of them were to his west.

  But someone he knew was.

  Justice.

  He’d fed from her recently, though the savage way he’d ripped at her skin and sucked out her blood was far too violent an act to be considered merely feeding.

  He’d brutalized her. Used her. She’d saved his life and he’d nearly killed her in the process.

  No wonder she’d kept well out of his reach since that night.

  He could feel her presence glowing and warm, like he imagined the forbidden sun would feel against his skin. At dawn, when he lay down to wait out the weakness of day in some dark hole, he would position himself so that he was broadside to her and able to absorb as much of her warm presence as possible.

  She was always on the move, constantly running toward something or possibly away from him. He’d tracked her for weeks, and rarely gotten closer than a dozen miles.

  She wasn’t hampered by daylight. She rarely stayed in one place for more than a few hours. He wasn’t even sure she slept. What he did know was that every night when he woke, she would always be moving away from him, her head start ensuring that he could never quite catch up with her before he was once again trapped by the sun, weak and exhausted.

  Except today. That thread of her that remained inside of his cells, connecting them, was still. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t running from him. In fact, she was closer than she’d ever been before at this time of day—close enough he might be able to find her. Touch her.

  The mere idea sent a heady rush of excitement sweeping through his wasted body. It was too good to be true, and perhaps even another trap that would leave him bleeding and unconscious like the last time he’d met her.

  In a sudden wave of fear, he realized that the deep stirring of wrongness he’d felt was coming from the same direction as her. It was her blood that had woken him.

  Justice was in trouble.

  Panic set in and stole what little warmth he possessed. His body was slow and stiff, but he forced his thin limbs to move and push himself upright.

  He couldn’t see the sun, but he could feel it sucking power from him and sapping his strength.

  How much longer until sunset? He wasn’t sure. Only minutes, but too many. Too fucking many.

  He managed to stand upright, but the effort left him shaking. He hadn’t fed well since Garet a few days ago, and his work sapped his strength.

  There was always someone who needed healing—the injured and sick—and he was responsible for the health of a lot of innocent children. He’d helped create them, but they were still too small to repay him in blood.

  One day they would be fully grown and become a source of power, but for now, they were a fragile crop not yet ready to harvest. Until they were, Ronan and his kind had to suffer in the hopes that their future would be better than their present.

  He only hoped that in the meantime his weakness didn’t cost someone their life.

  Hurry!

  A sense of urgency flapped around his head like raven wings and made his heart beat faster. He didn’t have time to wait for the sun to set. He had to move now.

  On joints that felt old and brittle, Ronan climbed the basement stairs into the two-story house above
. It was vacant—a safe house meant to serve as refuge for those who fought the war against Synestryn.

  The wooden floors were scarred and gouged with use, but clean. The air smelled of disinfectant and the remains of a meal cooked days ago.

  He’d made sure the curtains were drawn before he’d gone to sleep, but even the filtered sunset blazing against the western windows was too much for him to stand.

  His eyes burned. Tears streamed down his cheeks. His skin seemed to shrivel as if looking for a place to hide.

  If even one single ray of that light touched his bare skin, a Warden would be summoned and Ronan would be killed. There was no way he could fight one of those giant, crystalline warriors as weak as he was.

  Each breath was a struggle, as if he were sucking in air through a mile-long straw. His lungs were tight and aching, and his heart raced in an effort to spread his weary blood through his body.

  He stumbled on the leg of a kitchen chair and spilled to the cracked vinyl floor. It was cold and stole what little heat he had left.

  Even the constant warmth coming from Justice seemed to fade.

  That was the thought that got him moving again, despite his pain and weakness. She might not like him. Hell, she might even hate him. But she was the only hope he had in an otherwise hopeless life.

  He barely knew her, but if anything happened to her, he wasn’t sure he’d survive it.

  He needed her blood, her power. He needed her warmth.

  He needed her.

  It took several more tries before Ronan was able to get back on his feet.

  His van was parked in a garage that had been added to the century-old house a few decades ago. The space was small, but he’d managed to cram the van in and rush inside just as the first rays of sunrise had peeked above the eastern horizon.

  Small windows in the east-facing garage door let in the golden glow of sunset, but nothing more. No direct rays from the west could touch him here. He was safe. Weak, but safe. And once he got behind the wheel of his van, the magically-enhanced windows would make sure he was protected from Wardens, if not weakness.

  He hit the button to raise the garage door but would have no way to lower it once he pulled out his van. He’d call a gerai to come secure the house later, but now his complete focus was on dragging himself the last few feet to his ride.

  Climbing up into the high vehicle was exhausting. His loose clothes drooped on his frame as if he were no more than skin-covered bones. A deep, constant ache thrummed in his chest now, but he couldn’t tell if it was his heartbeat or his instincts begging him to hurry.

  Justice’s glow was fading fast.

  He lurched out of the garage into the last few blinding rays of sunlight. He wasn’t sure how he managed to steer onto the gravel road through the stinging tears blurring his vision, but he was speeding away toward the closest highway, a trail of dust billowing behind him as the last tendrils of light were swallowed by the rolling hills in the west.

  With the remains of the toxic sunlight fading, his strength returned, and with it, more fear.

  She wasn’t dead. That was the thought that kept him sane. Whatever had happened to her had left her still and weak, but she wasn’t dead.

  Each mile that passed seemed to take a year. He broke every speed limit, uncaring about the consequences. His van wasn’t sexy, but it had been designed to be a workhorse, carrying the weight of tradesmen and all their heavy tile, carpet or tools. With only a small amount of medical equipment and supplies in back, all that power went into speed. He rushed onto the interstate and into the trailing end of rush hour traffic between Kansas City and Columbia.

  With a brutal push of compulsion, he forced human drivers to get out of his way. Even the highway patrolman he passed gave him plenty of room as Ronan shoved the man’s mind full of an image of flashing ambulance lights and sirens where the speeding van had been.

  Even though he grew closer to Justice, he didn’t feel the blood bond they shared getting stronger. It was as though she were getting weaker at the same rate he got closer to her.

  He was going so fast, he missed the rest stop exit. It wasn’t until he felt her presence sliding past him that he realized where she was.

  He turned hard, into the wide, weedy median, then crossed oncoming traffic and all their blaring, angry horns to slew onto the exit ramp.

  When he saw the sleek, red Maserati, he knew it was hers. She had an affinity for speed, and there was no question where he would find her.

  Ronan parked beside her car and jumped out of his van without bothering to shut off the engine. It took only seconds to run to her door, but those last few feet seemed to stretch out like an eternity.

  Her head was slumped sideways at an awkward angle. Her loose, black curls obscured her face. Still, he knew it was her. If he’d seen only a single strand of her hair or one inch of her caramel colored skin, he would have known her.

  She was his. She didn’t want to be, but that changed nothing. He didn’t know how he knew that she was meant for him, but every cell in his body screamed the truth.

  And if he lost her, there would never be another woman like her, no matter how many more centuries he lived.

  Her posture was limp and wrong. Not asleep, but unconscious.

  Her engine was running, but the door was locked.

  “Justice,” he said, filling her name with a strong compulsion to respond.

  She didn’t, though he couldn’t tell if it was because she couldn’t, or because his power of compulsion didn’t work on her. It never had.

  Without hesitation, he slammed his pointy elbow into the glass. The window broke into blocky, sticky bits that glittered in her hair like snowflakes.

  A child’s terrified scream assaulted him, and it was only then that he realized that Justice wasn’t alone.

  Curled up on the floor on the passenger’s side was a little, blond girl. Her mouth was stretched on a wail of fear, and her blue eyes were just as wide. Blood smeared her clothing but didn’t soak it the way Justice’s clothes were soaked.

  “It’s okay,” he said in a low, gentle voice. “I’m not going to hurt you. Hush now.”

  This time, the gentle compulsion laced around his words worked.

  The girl quieted suddenly, her cries turning to strangled sobs and little sniffs.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, his power urging her to respond truthfully.

  The child shook her head and sucked her thumb. She looked scared, but unhurt.

  Justice wasn’t as lucky.

  The smell of blood rose out of the sports car. Lots of blood. Rich, intoxicating blood filled with magic and power.

  Ronan’s fangs lengthened, and the hunger in his belly bloomed into a ravenous pain. A snarl escaped his throat before he could stop it, which made the child’s soggy sobs grow louder.

  He ignored her, jerked the door open and crouched to inspect Justice’s wounds.

  Blood soaked her shirt and pooled on the floor beneath her seat. He could hear her pulse, weak and too fast as her heart struggled to keep oxygen flowing through her empty veins.

  She didn’t have much blood left to spare, but he had no choice but to take more. He was too hungry and weak in this state to do anything but watch her die.

  Before he could waste seconds she didn’t have, he brought her wrist to his mouth and bit deep.

  Only a few drops. As powerful as she was, that was all he needed to jumpstart his system. At least that’s what he told himself.

  But the second her sweet, potent blood hit his tongue, he knew a few drops would never be enough. He could drink an ocean of her power and still want more.

  His chest thickened with muscle. His scrawny arms regained their natural shape, growing as strong and healthy as they had been in his youth. Clothes that had been baggy stretched to fit perfectly, and all the weakness and lethargy of starvation disappeared.

  He became a mindless animal, consuming her sweet elixir in heavy, loud gulps. It was only when he fel
t her heart flutter that he realized just how far he’d gone.

  She was on the brink of death, hovering on the razor-thin line between this life and the next. Even one more drink, and he feared the damage would be irreversible—Justice, gone from this world forever.

  That was the thought that caged the hungry animal side of him behind thick, sturdy bars, clawing and biting to get free.

  He willed the puncture wounds in her wrist closed, then sent part of his essence into her body to find the source of her bleeding.

  She’d been shot twice. The bullets were still lodged in her flesh. One had chipped away a fragment of hip bone. The other had nicked the blood supply flowing to her kidney. That was where most of the blood was coming from.

  Ronan gathered his power and sent it out into her to mend her torn flesh. He shoved the bullets from her skin and healed the damage from the inside out. He fused that chip of bone back in place and stayed hovering inside of her to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

  As soon as the damage was repaired, he sped the process of replenishing her blood supply. She’d need fluids to make the magic work, but once he’d issued his demand to her cells, they would obey and keep doing so for days.

  The warmth of her mind curled around him and lured him to go deeper, but he didn’t dare. She was too weak, and he worried that if he started unraveling the mystery of who she was and where she’d come from, that he’d never stop.

  He’d already violated her once. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  When he was satisfied that her flesh was mended, he backed out of her body and into his own.

  Normally, he was always relieved to return to his own flesh, but this time it was different. His own skin seemed colder, thinner. All he wanted was to be back inside her, basking in her warmth.

  The child watched him with wide, untrusting eyes.

  “What happened to her?” he asked.

  “The bad men shot her.”

  “Why?”

  Her pale brow wrinkled in confusion, as if Ronan were an idiot. “Because they’re bad.”

  That was as good an explanation as any, and probably as much of one as he was going to get until Justice woke.