Page 19 of Bonded By Blood
“Oh,” Tobias said, “I’m not here to threaten you, Mr. Pearce.” He started forward, extended a hand, and forcefully guided Joe backward into the foyer.
Joe stumbled back in an effort to stay on his feet.
“I’m here to kill you.”
“Why?” Other than that he was killing people for the hell of it, anyway. Or that Joe had been involved in his brother’s capture. But he sort of suspected Tobias would have led with that if he knew that part. So was he actually going to kill Joe over the fact that Joe was friends with the local werewolves?
Tobias turned enough to close the door, quietly clicking it shut, moving casually. “Why not?” he asked. “Your furry friends will be awfully upset to hear your throat ended up being ripped out after all, despite the effort they went to to save you a couple years back.”
“And you think that’ll make your life easier?” Could he get his phone from his pocket, unlocked, and dialed, before Tobias stopped him? At this close range, probably not. Tobias was barely out of arms’ reach already.
“I don’t see how it’ll make my life any harder,” Tobias said. He cocked a brow, glancing down as Joe went to move his arm. “You can try calling for help if you want. They won’t get here in time.”
Fuck. Joe snatched the phone from his pocket, spun on his heel, and bolted for the kitchen. He didn’t have a wooden stake in his house, of course, but he didn’t intend to stand around and let someone kill him, either.
He made it all of five feet before he was thrown to the side, his phone flying from his hand, and his body slammed into a wall. Something snapped that wasn’t supposed to snap and searing pain shot through him. Flashes of his previous attack swarmed his mind, blurring his vision, and then Tobias took hold of the front of his shirt.
“You’ll find I’m much more efficient than the idiots who tried to do you in before,” he said, taunting, before he took hold of Joe’s jaw and shoved his head roughly to one side. A moment later a sharp, stinging sensation pierced his neck and Joe felt his body start to burn. All the pain he was feeling doubled, but he couldn’t scream.
Joe was trapped, as if floating in a sea of knives, consumed by pain and heat. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, pinned, unable to move. Scarcely able to breathe. At some point, the physical pain gave way to a level of numbness, where all he could feel was the burning. Constant, but dulled. Rolling in endless waves through his body.
As the numbness settled in, words he didn’t understand whispered in his ear. “I said I’d kill you, Pearce. I never said you’d be dead.”
****
“Lady Brianna?”
Brianna uncurled the fist she’d had pressed against her lips and turned her attention away from her silent phone. A trickle of guilt slipped into her chest, filtering past the twisting unease and unexplainable concern that had begun welling up inside her. She’d heard the smaller woman enter the room, but she hadn’t really paid her any attention.
Matilda, another of Brianna’s employees and the woman who’d switched shifts with Garvin at Brianna’s insistence, stood patiently a handful of paces away. She was older than Garvin by about a decade, and several inches shorter than Brianna, with short dirty blonde hair and calm hazel eyes. Matilda had worked for the Family faithfully for some fifteen years, if Brianna remembered right. The woman smiled. “I apologize for intruding,” she said. “I know you mentioned you were going out today, but I wanted to know if you would be having lunch first?”
Unbidden, Brianna caught herself wondering if Matilda remembered her birth name. She probably does. But how long did it take for a person to forget their original name, once they became accustomed to answering to another? Brianna didn’t remember how long it had taken her, even though she’d technically changed her name a few times. More than fifteen years, at least in the beginning, she was sure. I don’t know why Mother insists on renaming them. “No, thank you, Matilda. I think I’ll be leaving shortly.” She offered the sweet woman a warm smile. “Thank you for asking.”
Matilda bowed briefly at the waist, her hands clasped in front of her. “Of course, my Lady. I’ll have something ready for when you return.”
“That will be perfect.”
Matilda let herself out quietly, leaving Brianna alone once more.
Brianna returned her attention to her phone. She tapped at the screen and frowned. Still nothing. Why was that bothering her? Was it even that, or was it the persistent nagging sensation in her gut? She suspected it was both and opened her contacts list. After countless centuries of life, she’d learned to trust her instincts.
The call went straight to voicemail, as if confirming her fears. “This is Joe,” the recording began, “leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
At the cue, Brianna left a short message declaring her intent to come over early and disconnected. She didn’t say why and she tried not to let her worry slip into her voice. If her instincts were misleading her, and his phone was off for an innocent reason, she didn’t want to alarm him.
She headed for the large garage connected to the mansion by a covered tunnel with sporadic, specially-tinted windows. The guards at each end of the tunnel pulled the doors open for her with respectful nods and quietly eased them shut in her wake.
“Should I call for a driver, ma’am?” the guard at the interior garage door asked as Brianna moved to her favorite car.
Brianna lifted the keys from her purse, unlocked the car with the press of the button, and said, “Not this time. Please make sure word is passed along that I’ve gone out. I may be gone for a few hours.” Depending on what I find.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Once the door had raised, Brianna slipped her sunglasses into place and backed out of the garage. It was another couple of minutes before she was on the interstate, properly en-route to Joe’s. He lived in a smaller town, an outlying community from Sacramento. In typical Sunday traffic, the drive would take her the better part of an hour.
It was the longest drive she’d taken in recent memory.
She pulled into Joe’s driveway with a building sense of trepidation. Her phone had rested quietly in the dock for the entire trip. Counting from when she’d originally texted him, it’d been over two hours. I’m being paranoid. She really, really wanted to be overreacting. She wanted him to open the door, maybe fresh from the shower, and look at her like she was a little crazy. For him to tell her he’d just overslept, or lost his charger. Or both.