Eternally Bound (The Alliance, Book 1)

by Brenda K. Davies

  “Rest. It is going to be a tiring day for you, and you will be leaving shortly.”

  “Oh… ah… yeah,” she muttered. She had no idea what was wrong with her. She should be jumping for joy. Soon she’d be leaving this place and him behind to do everything she’d always dreamed about doing. The knowledge brought her no joy. Instead, it made that awful tightening of her skin start all over again.

  Her fingers bit into her arms as she held back the tears burning her eyes. She would not cry in front of him. She refused to do so again, especially since she had no idea why she wanted to cry. Okay, well, she had a little bit of one. She had come to care for this man who she would have gladly staked two weeks ago, and she wasn’t ready to leave him.

  Do I want to go? she asked herself. Of course you do, you idiot. You abandoned your whole family for a shot at freedom, and Ronan is offering you more than you ever could have hoped for.

  Then why did her heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vise?

  “Do you want to leave, Kadydid?” he asked.

  Her heart squeezed further at the nickname he’d given her; one she’d come to cherish over the past week. Was that a measure of hope she heard in his voice, or was she only trying to hear it there?

  “I want… I want to see the world and learn things,” she whispered.

  He glanced to the windows, his hands fisting as on the horizon the night sky began to lighten toward dawn. “And I will give that to you,” he murmured. “I must speak with Marta and Baldric now.”

  He kept his head averted from her as he strode toward the door. “Ronan.” He flinched away from her hand when she rested it on his arm. “I should speak with my brother.”

  His head swiveled toward her. She couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back from the burning red of his eyes. “Why?” he asked.

  Kadence swallowed. “To let him know we were wrong, that you are not all bad, that we all fight a common enemy. Maybe… maybe you could work together. Think of the good that could be done and the lives that could be saved if hunters and vampires united.”

  “And do you think he would listen to you?”

  She contemplated his question before sighing. “Probably not, but don’t you think it’s worth a chance?”

  His hand briefly rested over hers, his fingers squeezing her before releasing her. “I think it’s best if you get away from here. If you leave behind the violence and death of both our worlds and live the life you are meant to live.”

  “And what life is that?” she inquired.

  “One of happiness.”

  “Ronan—”

  Pulling her close, he kissed her forehead before releasing her. “Let this go.”

  The lump in her throat choked her as he strode toward the doorway. “Ronan!” she blurted when he stepped out the door. He hesitated in the threshold, his shoulders drawn up to his ears and his back hunched. “Thank you, for everything. No matter what, I will never regret anything that transpired between us.”

  “Neither will I.”

  “When I come back—”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “If you come back, I will be here, waiting for you.”

  “You’ll have found someone else by then,” she said with what felt like the worst smile.

  “No, Kadydid, there will never be anyone else for me, only you. Do not return here unless you’re ready for an eternity with me.”

  Before she could reply, he was gone from the doorway and she was left gawking after him.

  CHAPTER 29

  Kadence stood in the foyer, her small bag in hand as Marta bustled around her. For the thousandth time, Kadence’s eyes went to the hallway where the poolroom was located. Somehow, she knew Ronan was down there. She kept waiting for him to come to say goodbye, but she hadn’t seen him again since he’d left her room.

  “Are you ready, miss?”

  Kadence glanced at Marta before focusing on the hall again. That awful feeling of not belonging in her own skin hadn’t eased, but now she found it nearly impossible to breathe as she kept waiting.

  “Miss?” This time it was Baldric who stepped before her.

  Go, or stay for an eternity? And what did he mean by an eternity with him? He couldn’t have really meant what she’d thought when he said that? She wasn’t a vampire. There was no eternity for her.

  Kadence looked over at where Marta stood by the door with a small duffel bag in hand. Her mostly gray hair had been pulled into a ponytail. Her round face only showed lines around her eyes and mouth when she smiled. Plump with kind hazel eyes, Marta had become someone Kadence really liked.

  “Yes,” she croaked. “Yes. I am ready.”

  Baldric stepped back and opened the door for her. Kadence glanced over her shoulder, but there was still no sign of Ronan. She took a step toward the poolroom before retreating. If she went to say goodbye to him now, she might never leave.

  She forced herself to walk out the door. She’d turned against her brother and all her kind for this opportunity at freedom. She’d forsaken everything she knew; she could not change her mind now, even if she was contemplating staying for a man she’d only known for a short while.

  A man she had willingly given herself to. By doing so, she’d chosen a course she could never take back and didn’t want to. If she tried to return to the hunters now, and they somehow learned who she had given herself to, they may label her a traitor and kill her. Even Nathan wouldn’t be able to stop that from happening if they decided that’s what she was.

  Not like she would ever willingly tell them she had given herself to a vampire, but like Declan, there were those of her kind who had gifts. She certainly did. She had the same strength, speed, and enhanced senses her father and Nathan possessed and her strange knowing of things.

  Stepping into the day, Kadence tipped her head back and let the warmth of the sun wash over her. Baldric opened the back door of a black car with heavily tinted windows for her. Every step she took caused her shoulders to sag more, but she tossed her bag into the back seat and climbed in behind it.

  She winced at the clicking sound of the door closing behind her. Huddling into herself, she watched as Baldric and Marta climbed in and Baldric started the vehicle. She couldn’t look back as they drove down the tree-lined, cobblestone drive to the thirty-foot-high gate at the end.

  “Put your blindfold on now, miss,” Marta said.

  “Please call me Kadence. It’s going to be an extremely long time together if you keep calling me miss.”

  “Kadence then,” Marta said with a smile. “Do you need help with the blindfold?”

  “No,” she whispered and slid the thick material over her eyes.

  ***

  “What have you done, Ronan?”

  “If you want to survive to hunt tonight, I would suggest leaving,” Ronan didn’t look back at his friend as he replied to Declan’s question.

  “You have to stop them. You can’t let her go.”

  “I can and I did.”

  He kept his gaze focused on the bar as he swirled the whiskey in his glass. He was going on his third bottle of Jameson, and he still didn’t feel any effects from the alcohol, which was probably a good thing. In his current mood, he might tear this entire house down if he were drunk.

  The people who had lived here before them had shitty taste in décor, but they had fantastic taste in alcohol, he decided as he took another sip of the Jameson Vintage Reserve he’d discovered beneath the bar. At one time, he’d lived on Irish whiskey and women.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a sip of alcohol, but he could clearly recall the last time he’d taken a woman. Every second of that encounter had been emblazoned on his mind, along with the fiasco of an ending. And now she was gone, set free by none other than himself.

  Had he hoped she’d stay? Right up until she walked out the door. He would have denied it, but he realized now, he’d been holding out hope she would decide to stay for him.

  Now he was tryin
g to remember the last time whiskey had burned its way down his throat instead of thinking about who had walked out the door.

  The light Declan let in when he’d slid open the doors flashed, but not because he was closing them again; it was because Declan was coming closer. Ronan had closed the shutters over all the windows, unable to handle that small amount of sun right now as the demon churned within him. He definitely couldn’t deal with Declan’s worry for him.

  “Ronan—”

  The tumbler shattered in his hand, and liquid splashed over him as shards drove deep into his flesh. He didn’t bother to pull the glass from his palm before he lifted the bottle he’d set next to his chair. Declan remained mute as he padded by him to the bar where he removed a couple of bottles before walking over to him. Grabbing the back of one of the ugly chairs, Declan set it beside him, placed one of the bottles between them, and opened the other.

  “Not one more word about her, Declan.”

  “Understood.”

  The light shifted again and Killean’s resin scent drifted to him. Ronan’s fangs lengthened in anticipation of one of Killean’s remarks, but the vampire only walked by him to the bar before moving a chair to sit on Ronan’s other side. Saxon joined minutes later, and when Ronan heard the click of the front door shutting, he knew Lucien had also arrived.

  He’d forgotten Lucien was supposed to be coming today to discuss the moving of the training facility. Ah well, the more the merrier, he thought as he lifted the bottle to his lips and drank half of it down.

  Ronan closed his eyes and took another pull on the bottle. The bloodlust slithered through his veins like an insidious snake waiting to strike. Every beat of his heart caused his temples to pulse with it. Yet there was still so much to deal with, so many still counting on him.

  If he gave in and gorged himself on the blood, he wouldn’t have to deal with it ever again. He’d only have to deal with himself, and Kadence’s hatred of him should she return.

  Mate or not, she was gone and he had to accept that she may never return. He had to continue with what he’d been born to do. Rising to his feet, he drank the rest of the bottle as he made his way toward the bar.

  He waited until Lucien walked in and settled into another chair before speaking. “We have to take out Joseph before he continues to organize.”

  Declan passed his bottle to Lucien and opened the one he’d set on the floor. “We’ve had no new leads on him, even Brian is coming up blank,” Lucien said.

  “How is that possible?” Declan inquired.

  Lucien shrugged. “Brian said he’s not a GPS. Sometimes whatever he does just doesn’t work. He also said Joseph is most likely staying in a large crowd or city if he can’t pinpoint him.”

  “A large crowd of Savages?” Saxon asked.

  “Perhaps,” Lucien replied.

  “Not good,” Declan muttered.

  “The trainees, do they know what is going on? Why the facility is being closed and moved?” Saxon asked.

  “I saw no reason to keep it from them,” Lucien replied and tee-peed his hands before his face. “If they decide to bail instead of fight, then good riddance. I hope they get butchered by a Savage.”

  “Nice,” Declan muttered and took another drink.

  Lucien scowled at him. “You’d wish them well?”

  “I wouldn’t wish them death.”

  “We have to discuss if we will bring the turned vamps in to work with us,” Ronan said. Some of the glass still embedded in his hand clattered against the bar when it succeeded in working its way out of his flesh. He glanced at the blood splattered piece before focusing on the others.

  “It goes against tradition,” Saxon said.

  “It does,” Ronan agreed. “And the turned vamps aren’t as strong as we are, but they can take on a Savage. I lived through an attack from the Savages before. If Joseph comes at us with numbers like what they had back then, it will be a war the likes of which none of you have ever experienced.”

  They stared stonily back at him. He understood their reluctance to add turned vampires to their ranks and their pride. There were so few purebred vamps left, even fewer who had made it through the extreme training that elevated them to the status of Defender. The turned vamps went through a lot of training, but they didn’t go through the same kind of training they had all endured and survived.

  “They still don’t have to be one of us,” Lucien said. “We can call them something else if we want to use them for this battle.”

  “I vote we call them pissants,” Killean said.

  “I like it,” Lucien agreed. “They many not even be willing to fight.”

  “I’m sure you’ve inspired no loyalty,” Declan replied.

  Lucien gave him the finger. “I’m not there to inspire them. I’m there to make sure they don’t get killed by a Savage, and as soon as we find a replacement for me, I’m done with training them. Joseph boned me the most when he went Savage on us, and I got stuck with all the idiot newbies.”

  Thankfully, Joseph had given into the demon part of him outside of the training facility. Most likely because there had been enough recruits there to possibly take him down when they realized he’d become a Savage. Joseph had known that. Despite their endless thirst for blood, Savages were far from stupid. Before Joseph, they’d had no one to organize them, to lead them, but Joseph was a purebred, something different and stronger than they were, and the Savages were falling into line with him.

  “Bring the turned vamps in training, who agree to fight with us, here,” Ronan said to Lucien. “There will be enough room for them to stay here between the carriage house and the guest house, but make sure they have no idea where this place is located.” His teeth ground together at the idea of having to be so close to the recruits, but there was little else that could be done about it. As long as they stayed out of his way, they’d survive. “Cut the ones who aren’t willing to fight loose.”

  “What about Aiden, the purebred in training?” Lucien inquired. “His sisters and Brian are still at the training facility too.”

  Aiden had already been in training when his sister, Vicky, was captured by vampires looking to sell off her blood to the highest bidder. She’d been chained and held with other purebreds. It had taken them a while, but Ronan and the others had hunted down and destroyed most of that remaining threat against purebreds.

  What remained of those vampires were a far smaller threat than what the vampire race faced with Joseph. But then, Joseph and the Savages were a danger to everyone who crossed their paths. For the first time, he was glad Kadence would be far from here.

  “Bring Aiden and his family here too, if they agree to it,” Ronan replied.

  Lucien took another swig of his bottle.

  “There are other turned vamps who have already gone through the training and are out there hunting Savages,” Saxon said. “Do we bring them in?”

  Having as much help as they could get would be the smart thing to do, but having vampires crawling over this place and the nearby cities and towns in search of food would be a sure-fire way to draw Joseph’s attention, along with that of the humans.

  However, if Joseph was accruing Savages, it was only a matter of time before he caught the attention of someone he shouldn’t.

  “Let’s get the recruits here first, and then we’ll discuss bringing more turned vamps in,” Ronan replied as the last of the glass in his hand worked its way out of his flesh and clattered onto the bar.

  “When should I bring them?” Lucien inquired.

  “Now. I want this over with,” Ronan replied.

  CHAPTER 30

  “I’d like to make a phone call, if I can,” Kadence said.

  “Of course, miss… ah, Kadence,” Baldric replied with a smile. “You’re not a prisoner. We’re only here to make sure you’re safe.”

  She smiled at him as he held one of the cell phones out to her and she took it. “Thank you.”

  “If you’re going to call your brother, I
’d keep it short. That may be a throwaway phone, but we don’t want to take the chance they could find you.”

  “I will. It’s… ah… it’s okay if I call him?”

  “Ronan said you could do whatever you wanted once you were free, as long as it didn’t put you at risk, and I am to use my judgment on that. Since you can’t do anything to hurt yourself, or Ronan, I see no reason why you can’t call him. I don’t believe you would do anything to put Marta or I at risk either.”

  “Of course not,” she whispered.

  “Don’t forget our flight leaves in ten minutes.”

  Kadence resisted tugging on the collar of her shirt at the reminder. “I know.”

  She tried to tune out the crowd of people around her as she walked away from Baldric. It was quieter in this area of the airport than it had been when they were going through security, but she was ready to leave Logan Airport far behind her. Though she knew all the airports would have the hectic hustle and bustle of travelers trying to reach their destinations, she found the activity she’d assumed she’d love difficult to handle when a growing weight was bearing down on her chest.

  She started dialing as Marta walked by with a stack of magazines and books in hand. The crawling in her skin had increased since she’d left Ronan, but she didn’t know if that was from being away from him or from her unfamiliar surroundings. Not to mention, there were so many people; they were everywhere.

  Her head pounded from all the noise. The scents of cooking food, coffee, body odor, and one woman who had enough perfume on to drown an elephant filled her nose. Kadence couldn’t stop her nose from wrinkling as she passed the woman. She returned the dirty look the woman shot her and got as far from the woman as she could, but the heavy floral scent followed her.

  She hadn’t expected to be this overwhelmed by the human world, but her senses were being bombarded, and her body ached. Someone bumped against her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin before she hastily sidestepped them.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to steady the riotous beat of her heart as she punched in Nathan’s number and held her breath in the hopes her brother still had the same phone. She knew he would have done everything he could to keep it, knowing it was her only connection to him, but sometimes things went horribly wrong.