by HELEN HARDT
Undefeated
Blood Bond Saga: Volume Five
Helen Hardt
This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
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Copyright © 2019 Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Design by Waterhouse Press
Cover Photographs: Shutterstock
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All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
To those who challenge what they perceive.
Contents
Part 13
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Part 14
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Part 15
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Also Available from Helen Hardt
Excerpt from Misadventures with a Rock Star
Message from Helen Hardt
Also By Helen Hardt
Acknowledgments
About Helen Hardt
Prologue
Dante
Anger coursed through me, a black rage that curtained my mind. Blood thrummed in my ears, and I clenched my hands into fists.
Control. I needed my control. Needed Erin.
But Erin wasn’t here.
I snarled again, my teeth descending farther.
“That’s it. Show yourself, Dante. Show your true self.”
I’d already unleashed the darkness. I’d needed it to find this place, to return to hell. But now it whirled through me, overtaking my logic, my light, like a gray cloud consuming a sunny day with a raging storm.
I was the raging storm.
A click. A door opening. All the while red noise penetrated my ears.
She stood before me, waiting, her arms outstretched.
Go forward, the cloud urged. Go and be who you’re meant to be.
I grabbed fistfuls of my hair. Must fight. Must fight. Must fight.
Dante!
I jerked, looking backward toward the sound of a voice I knew. A voice I recognized.
A voice that meant something to me. A voice that exuded light.
Light…
But the black cloud edged out the light.
I squinted.
Three images. Two men, one woman. A daze swept over me. I squinted but could not see them clearly.
Control, son.
Another voice I knew, but it wasn’t connected to anything.
My gaze was drawn back to her.
Dr. Bonneville! I knew it!
The feminine voice again. I blinked. Two men, one woman. I knew these people.
Knew these people…
Or maybe I didn’t.
A duel of swords clashed within me, between light and dark. Pain. Searing pain lanced my organs. I growled, letting my fangs sharpen to their most lethal points. I snarled toward the three images. I recognized them, as if I’d encountered them in a dream. Or a dream within a dream.
Or a nightmare.
Dante!
Be strong, son.
Remember that part inside you, the part no one can touch.
Remember…
Remember…
Remember…
Re…mem…
Re…
The voices became high-pitched buzzing, and the images…
They blurred into nothingness.
Nothingness…
Then I turned toward the blond woman, whose image was so clear, as if she were outlined by fine black ink.
I dropped to my knees.
“I have returned, my queen.”
Chapter One
Erin
“No!”
I tried to race forward, but Jay grabbed my arm, pulling me back against him abruptly.
“No, Sis. It’s not safe.”
I pulled, desperate to disentangle myself from my brother. “Let me go! He needs me!”
“Erin,” River said solemnly, “he doesn’t even know you right now.”
“Dr. Bonneville!” I yelled. “Let him go! Let him go!”
“You three need to leave before she decides to take you.”
I looked upward toward the sound of Julian’s voice. Nothing. He didn’t materialize.
“I will not leave his side,” he continued. “I promise you.”
“I’m not leaving.” I pulled once more against my brother’s strength, trying to free myself from his grip. No one was going to keep me from Dante. “I can get through to him. I know I can!”
Dr. Bonneville was ignoring us, as if we were nothing more than three flies on the wall.
To her, perhaps, we were.
She was a vampire. Dr. Bonneville. I’d had my hunches, but to be confronted with it, to know the truth, finally…
She couldn’t smell River because he was also a vampire. Jay and I were wearing the basil and calendula potion that protected us from most vampires, but would it protect us from her? She was clearly very powerful to hold Dante in thrall.
Rage bubbled within me. I didn’t care if my scent made her crazy. I wasn’t going anywhere. Not without Dante.
“Get her out of here,” Julian said.
Did he mean me? Oh, no. I was not leaving.
Jay forced me outside the room and back into the dark tunnel anyway.
“Can you find your way back outside?” River asked Jay.
“Yeah. I
think so.”
“Good. Take her home. Keep her safe.”
“What about you?” my brother asked.
“I’m staying.”
My mouth dropped open. “Stop deciding what I’m going to do. We’re all staying. That’s why we came here.”
“No.” He stuffed his fingers into his pockets. “I didn’t expect Dante to get… He was glamoured. Glamoured. I never would have believed it. She has some kind of glamour over him.”
“But you said vampires can’t get glamoured!” Jay’s tone seemed almost accusatory.
“Apparently they can. Or she has him under some other kind of spell.” River turned to me. “So that’s your Dr. Bonneville. She’s the one. You were right.”
“I didn’t want to be right.” I looked down at my thigh covered in black spandex leggings. Dr. Bonneville had been feeding from me. Who else could it have been?
And she had fed from Dante. Icicles chilled my veins.
“Get her out of here, partner.”
Jay met River’s gaze. “No. We’re staying. We’re not leaving you here alone. My unborn child is in there. Remember?”
“Are you nuts? She’ll glamour the two of you, and you won’t be any help to Dante or anyone else.”
“What makes you think she won’t glamour you? Clearly she’s able to control Dante.”
“It’s a chance I have to take. My father’s in there somewhere. Lucy’s in there. Em is in there. I’m going to—” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m going to use myself as bait.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Jay said.
“Have I? She’s got my father and my cousins. I’m from the same stock.”
“If she wanted you, she would have come for you by now,” Jay said. “No offense. I’m sure you’re great stock.”
The two of them went back and forth like a couple of bullies on the playground, quarreling over who was tougher. You’re going. No, I’m staying. No, you’re going. Hell, no. I’m staying. The words became muffled in my ears, as if a pillow were over my head, or as if I were hearing them from underwater.
Soon they were completely unintelligible.
Invisible cellophane suffocated my skin, even as goose bumps rose all over me. My heart pounded wildly, and bile clawed up my throat.
Dante was in there. With her.
Fear boiled within me, but if she thought I’d back down and let her have him, she thought wrong. He was mine. I would not give him up.
Somehow, I’d get through to him.
If I couldn’t?
I’d take care of her. I knew this woman. I’d worked with her for years. I knew the ins and outs of her narcissistic personality. Plus, I had one more reason I couldn’t leave—a damned good one.
Dante needed me. Sooner or later, he’d require sustenance. He would not feed from her. Not as long as my heart was pumping blood.
River and Jay were still arguing back and forth. About what? I didn’t know at this point. I didn’t care.
I knew only one thing.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Two
Dante
“I’ve missed you, Dante.” The woman touched me under my chin. “Remarkable. You’ve become even more handsome. More majestic.”
“Thank you, my queen.”
“I know I was hard on you while you were here before. You bore it well.” She fingered my cheek.
A chill rushed through me. Not a good chill. The torture. The electrocution. She had been the mastermind behind all of it.
“Why? You dare to ask me why?”
I lay limp, knives of pain lancing through my body, my flesh buzzing from the electricity the goons had sent surging through me.
“Why?” I whispered once more.
Why do you take my blood? Why do you force me to drink yours? Why do you have me tortured? Why do you make me fight? Why do you reward me with human blood that I can’t resist? Why, after rewarding me, do you torture me again?
All those questions, but all that came out was another weak, “Why?”
Now here I stood, before her. She looked upon me with admiration in her icy-blue eyes.
You dare to ask me why?
For once, she would answer for her crimes upon my body and mind. I met her cold gaze. “Why?”
She waved away my question with a flick of her hand. “You’ll know everything before long.”
“Where’s my sister? What have you done with her?”
“Your sister is part of a higher purpose, just as you are. Just as everyone here is, Dante.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. When you’re ready.” She touched my arm.
Her touch burned like someone had ground a lit cigarette into my skin. I yanked my arm away.
My queen. I called her my queen. That’s not right. Why did I do that?
I bared my fangs with a growl.
“Put those away. I’ll let you know when I want you to feed.” She touched me again.
And again, the burn.
“Now, come.”
She opened the door, and light flooded into a hallway. Had I been here before? I recalled only darkness. Never light.
Light. I knew light. Light was something—someone—in my life.
Love and light.
Someone had shown me…
Scattered jigsaw pieces scrambled together in my mind. A body. A face. Full pink lips. Piercing peridot eyes. No sweeter blood.
Erin. Her name was Erin.
A heavy fog lifted from my brain as I forced the dark energy out.
Erin. My perfect love. She’d come here, and I’d turned my back on her.
How could she ever forgive me?
I clenched my hands into fists, ready to overpower this horrible and evil woman—
“Your sister and the others are safe,” she said.
My hands unclenched.
“They are vitally important to my research.”
I forced myself to calm. As much as I’d have liked to take her out, I needed to stay aware of the big picture. I was here now. I’d penetrated her lair. Now I had to find Emilia and the others and free them.
I’d last fed about twelve hours ago. I could go a week without blood if I had to… But the bond. Could I go that long without Erin’s blood?
I inhaled.
No specific human scents. Apparently I could still smell only Erin. That wouldn’t help me in finding Lucy and the other human females who’d disappeared.
“Where are we going, my queen?”
Those last two words were bitter on my tongue, but better for her to think I was still under her spell, that I hadn’t chased the darkness away.
Darkness rising.
The darkness.
The darkness had helped me find this place. If I could learn to control it, I could use it.
“I’m taking you back. Back to your dungeon, Dante.”
Oh, hell, no. I bared my teeth at her. Rage bristled inside me, and energy pulsed through my veins. I clenched my hands into fists. I was bigger and stronger. I would not go back there.
“You returned to me,” she said. “Did you think I wouldn’t keep you this time?”
“Think again.” The darkness. The darkness that was her would now be her undoing. My fangs sharpened.
“You have more to learn.”
“Why did you let me go, then?” I growled. “Why did you unchain me, let me escape?”
“You had things to learn that you could only learn in the world. You learned a lot, Dante. Most of all, you learned how powerful you are, and what you can become. But you’re not ready yet. You require more training.”
“Training? Is that what you call it? Forced captivity? Torture? Fighting to the death?”
She turned and met my gaze, her cuspids descending into sharp points. “You are magnificent, Dante, but don’t overestimate your importance just yet. You still have more to prove.”
“Your teeth don’t scare me. They’ve been embedded in my flesh
, remember?”
“Oh, you are formidable.” She snarled, a sound almost like a groan of gratification that seemed to shake the walls. “So perfect in nearly every way. Stronger than your own father and his twin brother. But you are not indispensable. If you fail me, there is one more.”
Though shudders threatened to rack my body, I tamped them down.
River.
She could only be talking about River. He was also the son of one of the Gabriel twins.
“You leave him alone,” I gritted out.
“He has his own purpose to serve,” she said nonchalantly, but then she narrowed her eyes. “You were chosen over him for good reason, but he is just as perfect. It’s always prudent to have a spare in place. Just in case.”
“I’m here, son. She cannot hear me.”
Thank God! My father was back.
