Eternally Bound
By
Brenda K. Davies
Copyright © 2016 Brenda K. Davies
Books By The Author
The Alliance Series
Eternally Bound (Book 1)
The Road to Hell Series
Good Intentions (Book 1)
Carved (Book 2)
The Road (Book 3)
Into Hell (Book 4) Coming 2017
The Vampire Awakenings Series
Awakened (Book 1)
Destined (Book 2)
Untamed (Book 3)
Enraptured (Book 4)
Undone (Book 5)
Fractured (Book 6)
Historical Romance
A Stolen Heart
Books written under the penname Erica Stevens
The Captive Series
Captured (Book 1)
Renegade (Book 2)
Refugee (Book 3)
Salvation (Book 4)
Redemption (Book 5)
Broken (The Captive Series prequel)
Vengeance (Book 6)
Unbound (Book 7)
The Fire & Ice Series
Frost Burn (Book 1)
Arctic Fire (Book 2)
Scorched Ice (Book 3)
The Kindred Series
Kindred (Book 1)
Ashes (Book 2)
Kindled (Book 3)
Inferno (Book 4)
Phoenix Rising (Book 5)
The Ravening Series
Ravenous (Book 1)
Taken Over (Book 2)
Reclamation (Book 3)
The Survivor Chronicles
Book 1: The Upheaval
Book 2: The Divide
Book 3: The Forsaken
Book 4: The Risen
Table of Contents
Other books by the Author
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
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Where to Find the Author
Excerpt from Into Hell
CHAPTER 1
Standing on the balcony, Ronan’s eyes scanned the bodies writhing below him. The only thing he found enticing about the vast amount of flesh on display was breaking the necks of every person in the club. He tried to shake the impulse off, but his fangs throbbed in his gums at the thought, and it dug deeper into him with every passing second.
His entire existence had revolved around one mission: protect the innocents of this world whether they be human or vampire. It was a mission he’d followed for over a thousand years, but with every passing day, the bloodlust growing within him dragged him closer to the edge he’d seen so many other vampires plummet over.
Some of those other vampires he’d believed to be far better and stronger than him, yet they’d given into their more sinister impulses. And somehow, he remained and now stood as the oldest vampire in existence, not just within his close-knit group of men, but throughout all the vampires.
Every day he woke, he questioned if that day would be the day he fell too and became the thing he despised the most, a Savage. He didn’t try to tell himself that he would never give in. He’d done that for many years, but this past year he’d come to realize it may be inevitable that he succumbed to the bloodlust beckoning him. If he didn’t kill himself before that happened, he would start to kill the innocents he protected.
It was the killing himself first part that would be tricky. Savage vampires thrived on the blood of innocents, but they weren’t stupid or lost to the madness of the death they delivered. No, many of them remained intelligent and calculating, and they didn’t want to die. A vampire who gave himself over to their inhumanity simply saw nothing wrong with what they were doing. The blood they consumed warped them into believing a vampire’s true nature was to kill and they were only living the way vampires were supposed to live.
No matter how much he despised Savages, if he gave in, he would most likely come to believe that too.
Perhaps they were right, but Ronan refused to believe vampires were meant to be little more than animals who ruthlessly slaughtered the weaker masses.
However, it didn’t matter what he believed or what he didn’t, he was teetering toward the Savage side. When he went over, would his men, or even multiple vampires, be capable of taking him out as he had taken out so many of those who had fallen before him?
That was a question he dreaded he would find out the answer to soon. The fine line he walked became thinner with every passing day, and with every death he delivered to the Savages amongst his kind. The thrill of killing the vampires he hunted had once satisfied him, but that was centuries ago. Now, it barely kept the demon part of him at bay.
The emptiness within him would never be filled. There wasn’t enough blood, wasn’t enough death to begin to satisfy him anymore. He faced the same bleak concept that the many who had fallen before him also faced: an eternity of nothing, or the possibility that giving into their more savage nature would finally fill the emptiness inside.
For some vampires, it hadn’t been a difficult choice.
How much more time do I have?
His hands tightened on the railing, twisting over the cool metal as his teeth clamped together and his fangs slid free to press against the back of his lips.
I will not be one of them!
He told himself this every day when he opened his eyes and the emptiness greeted him, but it sounded hollow then, and it did again now. Even amongst those who were born vampires, the purebreds such as himself, he was an anomaly and stronger than the rest. The turned vampires battled their darker natures too, but not as badly as the purebreds did. Because turned vamps were human before becoming vampires, they had more humanity in them than purebreds did.
If he gave himself over to the darkness, he would never know this sensation of being torn in two again, and he would slaughter hundreds, possibly thousands, before being stopped, if he could be stopped.
No matter what, he couldn’t lose control like that. He didn’t like humans overly much, but there were rules, and they must be obeyed if the vampire race was to continue undetected. Vampires were far stronger than humans, but they were also vastly outnumbered by mortals.
Fear would have humans turning on them, slaughtering them, and studying them like lab rats. Some, if not many of the mortals, may try to become vampires, which would create more Savages. If such a thing happened, the vampire food supply would be depleted and the world would fall into chaos.
The rules had to be strictly followed.
This had been instilled into him from the moment
of his birth. His parents had made sure he knew he would one day lead and keep the vampire and human races protected. That he would become a Defender, a vampire who protected the innocents and made sure the rules were obeyed. Things may be far different now than when his parents had been alive, but that mission still drove him every day.
Beside him, Declan shifted his stance as he glanced at Ronan from the corner of his eye. Declan’s eyes were so pure gray, they appeared silver as he surveyed the scene beneath them. He ran a hand through his dark auburn hair before tugging at the ends.
At six hundred years of age, Declan was the second oldest of their group, younger than only him. They’d been fighting together since Declan had reached maturity at twenty-four. Ronan had known Declan for his entire life, yet he still didn’t know all of Declan’s secrets.
He did know that he’d never seen his friend so apprehensive about a possible kill before, and he didn’t understand it. He’d expected Declan to be eager to destroy Joseph. Ronan suspected Declan’s apprehension was because his father had been the last Defender to give into his Savage nature, and it was stirring up old memories, rather than the fact they were now hunting one of their own.
Joseph had been a powerful fighter and ally for nearly fifty years. However, he and Declan had been like two dogs circling each other whenever they were in the same room. Declan’s more easygoing nature had abraded with Joseph’s austere personality.
In truth, Ronan had never liked Joseph either and never considered him a friend as he did the other Defenders who worked with him, but Joseph had been a strong fighter and had made it all the way through the rigorous training every purebred that worked with him had to endure.
Ronan had seen little of Joseph over the years as he’d run the training facility for turned and purebred vamps who wished to hunt Savages. Months ago, Joseph had given in to his bloodlust and become a Savage. Ronan had been trying to track him down ever since, but Joseph knew how they operated and how to fly under their radar. Not even Brian, a turned vamp who sometimes helped them to track down Savage vamps, could pinpoint Joseph’s location, until now.
Brian had called a few hours ago to let him know he’d gotten a track on Joseph in this area of Providence, Rhode Island. This club was the most likely place to attract Joseph. A club full of drunk humans was a homing beacon for vampires on the prowl. It was easy to prey on the humans here, and if Ronan got the chance, he would feed here tonight.
Feeding could wait; for now, they were on the hunt for something else.
His eyes swept the dance floor once more. Unable to take the flashing lights in places such as this, he’d put on a pair of dark sunglasses before entering, but the pulse of the flashing lights still made his head pound. The thumping beat of the music vibrated the floor beneath his feet. His gaze landed on the DJ. He ran his tongue over his fangs as he contemplated tearing the man’s throat out to end the annoying beat.
What had happened to real music like Beethoven and Chopin? He’d even take some Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, or Billy Joel over this. This crap was enough to drive the best of vampires over the edge, and he was far from the best. But the humans liked it as they ground against each other with a frenzy the equivalent of foreplay.
Movement behind him drew his attention to Killean and Saxon as they approached from the shadows. The few humans who had been standing nearby shrank away from Killean and vanished down the stairs.
“Anything?” Ronan demanded of them.
Killean shook his head as his golden-tiger eyes went past Ronan to the dance floor. A scar sliced straight down from his deep brown hairline and over his right eye before ending halfway down his cheek. Killean had come to work with Ronan when he was fifty-two, that had been four hundred years ago, and Ronan still had no idea what had caused that scar or who had given it to him. He knew it had been inflicted on Killean before he’d become a fully mature vampire only because it remained.
Next to Killean, Saxon folded his arms over his chest and his hazel eyes drifted toward the ceiling. His dark blond hair stood up in spikes around his head. “Something else might have attracted him away from here,” Saxon said. “There may be another club or bar or something we missed nearby.”
Or Joseph had managed to elude them again. Ronan’s teeth ground together as he released the railing. He wasn’t looking forward to killing the vampire he’d once considered an ally, but he wanted this over with. With Joseph’s purebred status, knowledge of the way they worked, and complete disregard of human and vampire life, he was far more lethal than many of the other Savages they’d dealt with. It had been centuries since one of their own had given in to their savage nature.
As far as Ronan could tell, going by the increased amount of disappearances, people who’d had their throats cut, and animal attacks since Joseph had given in, he’d killed over a hundred people and was averaging at least one a day. That didn’t include the amount of vampires he’d slaughtered too.
With every human death, Joseph grew in power, but he also became weaker. By now, Ronan knew his old ally couldn’t tolerate the sun anymore. Holy water and crucifixes would affect him, and soon enough, he wouldn’t be able to cross large bodies of water, if he still could now.
Movement on the dance floor drew his attention as a tall man with black hair glided through the crowd with ease. Some of the women stopped dancing to flirt with him and the three men trailing him. All the men continued through the crowd as if they didn’t see the women.
Ronan grasped the rail again as he watched the four of them. Judging by the way they carried themselves and the thick coats they wore when the humans had all checked theirs, Ronan knew what they really were…
“Hunters,” he murmured. “And not human hunters, but born ones.”
The born vampire hunters sometimes took in humans who knew of the existence of vampires. The hunters trained these humans how to kill vampires, but often those human hunters were bait for vampires. The hunters believed vampires were the monsters, but the practice of using the humans as bait was more ruthless than anything Ronan had ever done to a human.
“Bastards,” Killean hissed so low that Ronan barely heard him.
“Well, that made this night a lot less fun,” Declan said and leaned his hip against the rail.
“Do you think they’re tracking Joseph?” Saxon inquired.
“I don’t know,” Ronan replied as he watched the four men disappear beneath the balcony. “Watch the stairs. If they come this way, be prepared to fight.”
Saxon and Killean slipped back toward the stairs, moving through the few humans gathered in the shadows. Most of the mortals were entangled with someone else, or multiple someone elses. A few were huddling together, seeking a fix from their drug of choice.
Ronan had come here to destroy Joseph, but now they may also have to take out an enemy they hadn’t expected—an enemy that didn’t have to be an enemy, if the hunters weren’t so fucking stupid. But throughout the history of vampires and hunters, and despite their common ancestors, the hunters had always believed all vamps were bad. There was no reasoning with them; there was only surviving them.
He’d done what he had to do to survive before and killed a couple of hunters in his lifetime. If it became necessary, he would do it again tonight.
CHAPTER 2
Kadence watched from the shadows as her brother, Nathan, disappeared down the stairs to the club with her fellow hunters, Asher, Logan, and Jayce, following him. Nathan would kill her if he knew she was here, or more likely lecture her for hours on end, but she wasn’t going to sit this hunt out. She was forced to sit out most of her life; she wouldn’t miss this.
She just had no idea how to get into that club. Her gaze ran over the line of people snaking around the side of the building and waiting to get inside. The man at the front of the line held a red rope. He’d let her brother in as soon as Nathan approached him. Kadence had never met the man before, and if she had to wait in line, she would never make it inside in time. She
didn’t know how or why, but she’d always somehow known things over the years, and her instincts were telling her this would be the night and she had to get inside now.
Just as her instincts had told her when her father was killed. She shuddered at the memory of the sweeping, empty feeling that had descended over her the second her father left this world. Hours later his death was confirmed, but it had been no surprise to her when she saw his body. Her fingers dug into her palms at the reminder of how ineffective she’d been. Yes, she’d known when he died, but she hadn’t known in time to try to prevent that death.
Now she knew that tonight was the night they would find the vamp who had murdered her father. She’d been working on trying to break out of the stronghold for a while, but she’d known tonight was the night she had to go. She’d buried her anxiety over the prospect of being on the other side of the walls that had encompassed her for most of her life, and put her escape plan into motion.
As a hunter, she’d been trained on how to kill a vamp, but as a female hunter, she’d never been allowed to actually fight a vamp or to mingle with humans. This was the first time she’d been out of the hunter stronghold in twenty years, and the last time was only because they’d relocated from Virginia to Massachusetts when an upswing of vampire activity drew them to the area.
Most times, she understood why she was kept so sheltered, but she resented it all the time. There was so much of the world to see, so much to explore and learn outside of the thousands of books she’d poured through in her lifetime. She knew hunters were vital to keeping the human population safe from the monsters that came out at night, but did that mean her life had to be sacrificed?
Kadence sighed and her shoulders hunched forward. Yes, that’s exactly what it meant.
As her dad had always told her, one life was nothing compared to the billions of lives relying on the hunter race to continue. Yes, they could recruit humans, and they did, but it was necessary to continue the pure hunter line as well. However, it was often difficult for a female hunter to conceive so the women were protected and the men fought.
Eternally Bound (The Alliance, Book 1) Page 1
