by Donya Lynne
Bound Guardian Angel©
All the King’s Men, book seven
Published by Phoenix Press
Copyright 2016 Donya Lynne
Cover by Reese Dante - www.reesedante.com
ISBN: 978-1-938991-16-5
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].
References to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or persons or locales, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Did You Enjoy The Book?
Bound Guardian Angel Reader Group Guide
Books By Donya Lynne
About Donya Lynne
Connect With Donya
Acknowledgements
As with every book I’ve written, this one took a large team to pull off. I want to thank all my wonderful beta readers for your fabulous feedback, and I want to thank Sue and Laura for your invaluable suggestions. You’re both more valuable than I can convey. Thank you to Ariel for making my words looks as good as they read, and thank you to Reese for packaging them in such sexy covers.
I want to send a special thanks to Wendi. It was your contribution to this story that created a new, endearing character named Aiden, or little Aidy as her twin brother calls her. I hope she lives up to your expectations and hopes, and I hope you find her as wonderful as I do. She will hold a special place in All the King’s Men for as long as the series endures.
“Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior.”
-Juvenal
Chapter 1
“Wake up, freak. Time to go.”
Trace’s head shot up off his outstretched arms at the sound of the guard’s gruff voice and the clang of metal on metal. He was tucked in the corner of his cell, on the floor, his forearms stretched over his bent knees. Had he actually fallen asleep?
He wiped his gritty palms down his face and flexed his back, making his spine pop, then squinted and used his hand to shield his eyes against the flashlight the guard aimed at him. “Huh?”
“I said it’s time to go. Get up.” The guard tossed Trace’s clothes at him the way someone might toss a steak toward a starving lion at the zoo. Very carefully and at a distance, making it a point to keep all body parts and appendages out of the cage. “Get dressed. We leave in fifteen minutes.” The guard turned off his flashlight, casting Trace into shadow again, then flicked him a wary sideways glance before hurrying off like he couldn’t get away fast enough.
A relieved sigh left Trace’s lips as he leaned the back of his head against the wall and stared into the dimly lit corridor outside his cell. He’d made it. He’d survived two weeks inside King Bain’s dungeon.
His gaze dropped to the well-used razor in his left hand. When Cordray had given him the razor a week ago, it had been shiny and new. Now the blade was dull and dotted with dry blood. His blood. Rows of angry, unhealed cuts lined both arms, as well as his ankles.
But his self-mutilation had worked. He hadn’t turned. He hadn’t lost control of his power. Yes, he was frayed around the edges. Yes, he’d flirted with sanity’s boundaries a time or two. Yes, it felt like ants crawled under his skin and snakes slithered over his body, but he was still a vampire. Still himself. Not some mutant ready to destroy Chicago and everyone he loved.
Cordray’s generosity had saved him.
Blech.
Just the thought that Cordray had done something nice to help him left a bad taste in his mouth and made him feel like a traitor. He didn’t want to be grateful to that bitch. He wanted to hate her. She scared him, which was a sentiment he would share with no one, but a truth he couldn’t hide from himself. She saw things he didn’t want anyone to see. Not even Micah could see into his well-protected mind, but, somehow, Cordray was able to unlock his thoughts. That alone made her terrifying. Because if she could worm her way into his thoughts, what else was she capable of?
Trace had worked hard all his life to shield himself from the pain others could wreak on him. He wasn’t talking about physical pain, because, yeah, he dug that shit. He was referring to the mental and emotional pain someone could inflict by discovering his secrets. Truths that shamed him and were best kept private for the agony they could create in the wrong hands.
A small part of him wanted Cordray’s hands to be right in so many ways. He wanted to trust her, because as much as he despised her, she was a damn fine piece of female who smelled as good as she looked, but he simply couldn’t allow himself to believe she was anything but trouble, which meant avoiding her was a top priority.
Easier said than done, considering she was to be his lord and keeper for the next three months. As long as he could keep his inner beast in check and not lose his Cracker Jacks around her, he stood a chance of making it through his community service without doing her bodily harm. But damn, she’d better not push him. He couldn’t make any promises that he wouldn’t maim her if she flapped her yap at him the way she usually did.
Pushing forward, his joints crackled as he grabbed his clothes off the soiled floor and unfolded himself into a standing position. His muscles were as taut as an army grunt’s bunk and protested angrily as he maneuvered in the tight space. The strain to remain vigilant over his power for two weeks had taken a heavy toll on his body. It hurt just to move.
He readily abandoned the scratchy, filthy prison clothes he’d been forced to wear, discarding them on the archaic cot he’d used as a bed, and pulled on his cargo pants and long-sleeved Henley.
He would pull his own teeth for a shower, not to mention a good beating at Micah’s hand. That would put an end to the feverish trembles shuddering through his body like barely contained lightning bolts.
Pacing, he brushed his palms up and down his arms to expel the pent-up energy making his insides feel like a nuclear bomb on the verge of exploding. He
was beyond ready to get the fuck out of there.
A few minutes later, the guard returned with three of his buddies and a pair of cuffs big enough to restrain an elephant. Was he that scary?
“Really, fellas, this is a bit overkill isn’t it?” he said as they manacled him.
The irons were as heavy as they looked, but the strain helped relieve some of the bite from his hovering-just-beneath-the-surface power.
“We’re not taking any chances,” one of the guards said as they led him through the corridor.
“We’ve heard what you’re capable of,” said another.
What he was capable of was certain death. Abrupt, violent, messy, and painful death. He could crush someone’s heart with a simple flick of his hand. He could break every bone and rupture every organ inside a person’s body simply by making a fist and thinking them dead. He’d done it before. In fact, he’d done it just a couple of weeks ago to that traitor in Bishop’s Frankenstein lab in Arizona, where he’d found his father strapped to a lab table with tubes and needles sticking out of his arms, having God knew what done to him.
He’d rescued his father and helped rescue Princess Miriam, earning a shorter prison sentence for his heroics, but he could do nothing to save his own soul. He was still the freak of nature he’d always been. Still as deadly. Still an aberration others were more inclined to run from than embrace.
The guards were right to be cautious. Even wearing the shackles, he could simply focus his mind and snap their necks with a twitch of his index finger. They needn’t worry, though. He had no intention of killing anyone tonight. Not unless he unexpectedly transformed into a mutant. Not even these Chewbacca-sized manacles could hold him if that happened. As a mutant, he would be able to break them in half like they were nothing but dry kindling.
At one time, he’d feared turning into a mutant was his inevitable destiny. His power had grown steadily for decades, only forced into submission by pain and humiliation, which was why he’d taken to the life of a submissive.
But a couple of decades ago, he realized he was needing harder and harder punishment as the years wore on. Like bacteria that no longer responded to antibiotics and raged out of control, the monster that resided inside Trace had grown resistant to the beatings and humiliation from his former Doms. Beatings that had once pushed his power into submission for at least two weeks had lost their effect, forcing him to seek punishment more often, eventually to the tune of once every few days.
Now, only one Dom would do. Micah. And he’d found Micah not a moment too soon, given how dire his situation had become in recent years. Micah’s hard-handed domination had been Trace’s last resort to prolong his life to its very limit before certain mutancy took him.
But now the situation had grown more complicated. Not only had Trace discovered his father was still alive, but Brak was, too. His twin—who had been created to provide balance to his power—lived. Trace was saved. Between Micah and Brak, they would be able to keep his power in check.
As long as he could find Brak. Because while he’d rescued his father, he still had no idea where to find his brother. All he knew was that Brak had been there, in his cell. There had been no mistaking Brak’s wraithlike essence inside his body, calming him, healing him, doing what Brak had been born to do. Doing what Mother had given him the power to do before they’d even been born.
A shiver of guilt rippled through him as thoughts of his mother touched his mind. His father and Brak were still alive, and he had found his salvation, but his mother was still dead, and it was his fault. All his fault.
He hung his head and trudged up a flight of stone steps as the guards guided him to his freedom. A freedom coated with fresh guilt over what had happened so long ago. Guilt over the death and sorrow he’d brought to his family.
He scoffed silently to himself. He wasn’t free. He was still imprisoned by what he’d done, and he always would be. Not even Brak could soothe this torment. If anything, knowing Brak and his father were alive worsened his anguish, because now he had to face the past. He could no longer hide from it. The moment he saw them again, the truth of his actions would detonate inside his mind. God help him and anyone near when that happened, because he had no idea how bad the mental rupture and resulting fallout would be.
Outside, Trace took his first breath of non-stagnant air in over two weeks. God, it smelled good. Fresh. Not like stale sweat and bodily waste.
The guards shoved him into the back of a conversion van outfitted with bars and uncomfortable metal benches on both sides. One of the guards hooked his chains to the floor. Then the doors slammed shut. A few seconds later, the van jerked forward and bounced over what felt like a pothole before pulling out onto smooth pavement.
It was a short drive to the processing and pickup location, which didn’t give him much time to dwell on what would happen when he saw his father and brother again. Besides, at the moment, the one thing dominating his thoughts was how he needed Micah to dominate him. Once Micah had beaten his power into submission, there would be more room inside his head to sort out his family issues.
Less than five minutes later, the van slowed, turned off the road, and then came to a stop. The doors opened, he was unhooked, and then guided into a small, white-brick building that looked more like a weigh station than a military outpost for King Bain. Then again, maintaining a low profile was crucial for vampires to remain hidden among humans. A sign declaring the building as an outpost for King Bain would raise eyebrows.
Inside, the guards removed his shackles and secured him inside yet another cell. At least this one had a chair, a small bed that folded away from the wall, and an actual toilet. Five-star accommodations compared to where he’d spent the last fifteen days.
The cell door clanked shut behind him, and all four guards seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief as they headed away.
“Finally,” one said with an air of satisfaction.
“Yeah, man. I’m glad to be rid of that one,” said another. “He gave me the willies.”
“What a freak,” said another.
Freak.
The word struck something deep inside Trace’s soul, and he flinched as if he’d been snapped with a wet towel.
The guards’ laughter rang out, taunting him, hitting him like a fist.
A painful image launched unbidden from deep within his memory. Flashes of smoke and fire flickered between images of being hit, kicked, punched, and shoved face-first into the dirt.
“No . . . stop.” His strangled voice locked inside his throat as he staggered backward, throwing his arms out in front of him as if he could push the memories away. His heel hitched against the toe of his other boot, and he fell, landing hard on his ass. Driving his heels into the floor, he pushed away from the cell door until he hit the wall.
Freak!
The insult from his childhood snapped inside his head as flashes of fists and boots swung toward him.
“No . . . please. Don’t.” He grimaced and shielded his head with his arms, cowering, tucking his head between his knees and curling into a ball inside the cell.
Look at the little freak! He’s scared. Laughter rang through his mind.
He winced and tried to block out the memories of his childhood nemesis, Mason, and his pack of followers as they teased and taunted him. He’d only been twelve years old at the time, his hair as long as Brak’s, hanging in dirty strands around his face. Back then, dirt had been a way of life for a young boy who played in the woods and helped his mother dig up roots and herbs for her tinctures. But constantly being covered in dirt hadn’t made him popular with the other kids in the small town.
The painful memory sped up, playing out like a fast-forwarded movie as he saw Mason and his friends circle him, shouting, laughing, throwing dirt and pebbles at him. A pebble hit him in the cheek, and Trace flinched, slapping his palm over the side of his face.
Tears squeezed out around his eyelashes. He was that young boy again. The discarded little boy a
ll the other children made fun of, bullied, and ignored.
“No.” He ducked and covered his head with his arms again as Mason began slapping him in his memory.
It felt so real, as if he were really being hit, really being kicked.
The memory surged forward, and Trace was on his back, blood gushing from his nose from where Mason had hit him. The others—including Beth, the little strawberry blonde he’d had a crush on—stood around him, laughing. Laughing and pointing. Calling him names. Lumpish toad. Flogging cully. Freak. Sissy. Crybaby. The insults echoed in his ears, repeating over and over like he was in a cave where sound carried on forever.
Then Mason knelt and grabbed a rock from Trace’s collection. Trace never left home without the small leather pouch his father had made for him. He kept all the rocks he’d collected inside it. He even took the pouch to school. He loved those rocks, collected from his family’s nomadic travels. But his favorite was the one he’d found on the shore of the gurgling brook near his home. The one in Mason’s hand now. It was white quartz flecked with black obsidian.
Trace rolled and shot forward, on his hands and knees, and reached for the rock. “Give it back!”
Mason jerked it away as he darted toward the pond, laughing.
Pressure mounted inside Trace’s body. His muscles tightened. His right hand twitched. Pain lanced his skull, making him wince even as his senses honed to razor sharpness. He could hear the ants skittering across the ground, taste his own humiliation, smell the contempt of his persecutors, and feel the invisible droplets of humidity in the air as they landed on his skin. If not for the tears clouding his vision, the grains of earth at his feet would have seemed like boulders.
Must leave. Must get away.
Something bad was about to happen. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
“Give it back, Mason!” He unfolded himself and crouched, scurrying to gather the rest of his beloved rocks, so sparkly and beautiful. They were all he had that belonged solely to him. Collected by his own two hands.
