Page 30 of Bonded By Blood
The double-door main entrance slammed open and all three of them startled at the loud intrusion. Jasen stalked into the room with a fierce scowl on his face and the woman Brianna had been talking to practically seemed to shrink in on herself. Jasen’s narrowed stare swept over the space, as if not seeing them, before snapping back to them—undoubtedly to Brianna—in a matter of seconds. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
Joe couldn’t see Brianna’s expression, but if it was anything like her tone, it bespoke her lack of appreciation for the comment. “I’ll be where I want. Particularly while nobody’s willing to tell me what the hell’s going on in my own house.”
Instead of responding, Jasen snapped a glare to the other vampire. “What are you supposed to be doing?”
“Ah,” she stammered, flexing her hands at her sides. “Helping with the … search. Sir.”
Jasen strode forward until he was towering over her without actually trying. “Then fucking search.”
Joe struggled to keep his eyebrows at their regular height. He was concerned about whatever the situation was, and the condition of the man who’d been attacked, but he was also concerned about why no one was talking to Brianna. That all aside, he found a twisted sort of amusement in the exchange between the woman and Jasen. An amusement he intended to keep entirely to himself.
The woman scampered off without argument.
Joe’s misplaced amusement died as Jasen’s irritated glare settled on him. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’ve been showing him around,” Brianna supplied. Her tone was calm, but it was the calculated sort of calm that hid a storm. “Whatever’s going on, he wasn’t part of it.”
When Jasen didn’t immediately respond, Joe said, “At some point, you’re going to have to accept that I’m not the enemy.”
The upper edge of Jasen’s lip lifted in a subtle sneer. “I don’t have to do anything, boy.” His face returned to an ominous neutral and he focused again on Brianna. “I’ll escort you to your mother.”
Brianna drew a breath. “I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s—”
“Troy Wilson’s escaped.”
Joe’s eyes widened. He knew they’d taken the man into custody, whatever that meant in their world, to use as leverage against Tobias. Troy’s escape could only bring bad news.
Brianna released a slow breath. “I don’t need an escort. Mother called you in to find him, not play chaperone. Go to work.”
Jasen glanced briefly to Joe. “And him?”
“Me, what?”
“I’ll take responsibility for Joe,” Brianna said. “Go.”
Jasen’s dark eyes crinkled in a frown, but he inclined his head and turned.
Brianna slipped her hand again into Joe’s. Quietly, she said, “The safest place for you right now is with me. But it’s about to get a little uncomfortable, and for that I’m sorry.”
Joe gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m not looking for a babysitter, Bri. If it’s easier on you, I can sit right on that couch and wait for you.”
She offered him a small smile as she led the way across the great room, toward the door she’d earlier said led the way to her mother’s side of the mansion. “If I could trust that my own Family, in their frazzled state, wouldn’t lose their minds and ‘blame the new guy,’ I might take you up on that.” She paused for a heartbeat that felt like an hour. “But … it’s really, really hard to escape our holding cells. From the inside.”
He heard what she didn’t say. Someone among them, among the group of people she was supposed to be able to trust, had betrayed them. And everyone knew it, which would naturally dump an unreasonable heap of suspicion on the person they all knew the least—him.
That was why the female vampire had looked at him warily. It was why Jasen had questioned him.
Suppressing a bitter laugh, Joe said, “And to think I was already nervous about meeting your mother.”
She offered a light laugh of her own. “She makes most people nervous.”
Joe imagined that statement was true enough, but he wasn’t in the least prepared for the woman he met when he and Brianna walked into the so-called meeting room a minute later. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Someone similar to Brianna, perhaps visually a decade or so older. That wasn’t at all the reality.
The Queen of Vampires was only outwardly a handful of years older than her daughter, practically the same height, and she didn’t dress at all like Brianna. In contrast to Brianna’s modest full-length dress with cap sleeves over the shoulders, Trista’s skirt couldn’t have been tighter and definitely didn’t need to be shorter. She’d paired it with a bustier top under a fashion-statement jacket and platform shoes. The contrast to his mental visual was almost jarring.
The door swung shut on its own behind them and Trista looked up from her large chair. She frowned severely. “Who is this? Why are you bringing someone in here I didn’t summon?”
“Mother,” Brianna started, stepping forward slightly. “This is Joe Pearce. He was with me when I heard the news. Given the circumstances, I thought he would be safer here than alone in his room.”