Page 41 of Bonded By Blood

Chapter Eleven

“Hey. New guy.” There was no mistaking the animosity in the voice that called out to him.

Joe stopped walking and closed his eyes. The trailing footsteps behind him ceased, too. He’d only barely rounded the corner from his current room—a room he had no idea if he was supposed to be calling his own or not. It was nice to have cleaned up, but he was eager to get back to Brianna. He was not in the mood to be accosted for no reason. Then again, is anyone, ever? Releasing a silent breath, Joe turned halfway around, enabling himself to see the vampire who’d addressed him.

It was hard to say if he’d seen the other man before or not. He was a little shorter than Joe, his face showed more age, and he wore generic dark clothes. Like most of the rest of the staff. His hair—a darker shade of blond—hung over his forehead and shadowed his eyes, but it was buzzed up behind his ears on the sides. The cut gave him a sort of bully look, at least when joined by the glare in his eyes.

Tucking his own hands into his pockets in an attempt to keep the conversation calm, Joe asked, “Yeah?”

Apparently, his response had the exact opposite effect, because the expression on the other vampire’s face only darkened. “I don’t know what you did to convince the Princess that you’re innocent, but I’m not blind. Or stupid.” He took two menacing steps forward without looking away. “Everything went to shit around here when you showed up. That’s no goddamned coincidence.”

Joe narrowed his eyes at the stranger. “I was barely on my feet when Troy Wilson was let out of his cage. You’re an idiot if you think I had the means to pull that off.”

The vampire scoffed. “Right. Wasn’t it convenient, you being discovered by the Princess so quickly. Being brought here and coddled like her new favorite toy.”

Joe ground his teeth, which hurt a lot more than it used to when he was human, actually. He made a mental note to work on kicking that habit. “Nothing about what happened was convenient.” He fought to keep his hands in his pockets and away from the provoking male.

“You mean other than being in her line of sight when she found out about the escape?” The guy sneered as if he’d won his argument. “I’d call that convenient.”

“You know what’s not?” Joe didn’t wait long enough for the guy to speak again. “Being the new face at a time when everyone around me’s looking for a traitor. Because Brianna was right—it’s too easy to just blame the new guy.”

The other male curled a lip over his teeth, his shoulders tightening for a second. “Arrogant bastard!” Suddenly, he surged forward and slammed Joe into the wall with a hand around his throat. “Don’t speak the Princess’s name so casually!”

Joe choked, tugging his hands from his pockets in an effort to try pushing the other male off. He still had most of his feet on the floor, but other vamp was older, stronger, and had the advantage of the better position. Joe shoved at him, anyway. He tried getting both his arms between their bodies, but the vampire twisted his grip enough to block his best angle with an elbow. So he settled for landing one hand on the guy’s chest, fingers splayed and pushing, and grabbed at the guy’s face with his other.

His fingers digging into Joe’s neck, nails scrapping the skin, the vampire said, “I’m gonna kill you, and prove there is no traitor. Then everything will go back to normal!”

The guy had lost his mind, presuming he’d had one to begin with.

Sharp, stinging pain burst along the sides of Joe’s neck as the vampire’s nails broke skin. He could hardly breathe at this point. He didn’t have the momentum, or the strength, for a good shove, and clearly his opponent didn’t need much of a direct line of sight to rip out a throat. So he gave up pushing and took hold of the guy’s shirt, intending to reverse the direction of his efforts and pull him closer. Even one stumbled step should bring the vamp in close enough for Joe to hit something vital with a rapidly raised knee. It was his best option.

The pain at his neck increased in tandem with the pressure. The vampire pinning him to the wall sneered at the prospect of victory. “Goodbye, Pea—”

A rush of black leather and an accompanying growl preceded a distinctive snap! and the sudden removal of pressing hands clawing at Joe’s throat. Though the stinging actually got worse, the immediate resurgence of air into his lungs made it more than worth it.

Joe’s assailant was physically removed from him, leaving Joe to slump against the wall and catch his breath. It took him a moment to wrap his brain around the new scene.

The vampire who’d attacked him had been flung down the hall. He’d toppled awkwardly and eventually come to a stop when his shoulder cracked on the opposite wall. One of his arms was badly broken, and there was blood, as if from spit-up, on his shirt that Joe was fairly sure hadn’t been there before. He’d been hit hard. A mortal man would surely have died from a blow like that.

The source of the vampire’s wounds, though Joe was hesitant to think of him as any kind of savior, was Jasen.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Jasen’s growled question was mostly directed at the vampire crumpled on the floor.

The other male coughed up some more blood in his failed attempt to speak.

Joe straightened, fighting the urge to rub at his still-healing neck. “He thinks I’m the traitor. So I guess killing me would have put his life back in order.”

Jasen turned his head enough to glance at Joe, acknowledging him, before he looked forward again and kicked at the other vampire’s nearest leg. “Congratulations, fuckface. You just joined my suspect list.”

The vampire winced visibly and managed to pull his wounded arm up against his chest. He drew a shaky breath, groaned when he moved his unbroken arm—the one attached to the shoulder he’d cracked—and managed to stand. “N-no, you don’t understand—”

Jasen grabbed the shorter man’s bangs and dragged him in close, but Joe heard every syllable. “Oh, I understand. You’re a stupid piece of shit. But if you’re lucky, that’s all you are.” Without releasing the guy’s hair, he turned his attention back to Joe. “And what are you doing wandering alone?”

Joe held up a single hand defensively before he could even think about it. “I wasn’t wandering,” he said. “I had to shower. I still smelled like werewolf and pine trees.” He felt bad saying it like a negative, but now that he was a vampire … well, werewolves stunk. “I was headed to meet with Brianna at the library.”

The defeated vampire actually bristled. “That bastard has no … respect!”

Jasen arched a brow and tilted his head as he looked sidelong over at the man he still held by the hair.