Page 43 of Bonded By Blood

They dashed through the mansion, Jasen leading the way, and Joe’s mind spun.

Obviously, whoever the traitor was had to have been behind the poisoning of Brianna’s meal, but how had they done it? It wasn’t as if they had gallons of blood in re-sealable bottles just stacked up in the refrigerator. The way Joe understood it, the blood Brianna and her mother drank came mostly from the in-house human staff. But the Family also owned a blood center, so the household supply was never low. Regardless, the supply was also thoroughly vetted, he was sure. So how had werewolf blood gotten into—

Werewolf blood.

The realization hit him so hard Joe nearly tripped. Jasen hadn’t specified, but he hadn’t needed to. As far as Joe was aware, the only thing vampires were fatally vulnerable to—outside of beheadings and wooden stakes to the heart—was werewolf blood. It was obvious enough that werewolf blood had been mixed in with Brianna’s drink, but what hadn’t hit him immediately was the meaning behind that. Since there absolutely wasn’t a wolf on the staff, that could only mean … the blood was Simon’s.

It was bad enough one of his friends had been murdered by the same monster that had forcibly Turned him. Now, somehow, his friend’s blood had been weaponized against Brianna. No. It’d been weaponized against them both. Both glasses had been poisoned, and one of those glasses had been meant for him.

The sight of Seth in front of an unremarkable door at the end of the short hall Jasen had just turned them down drew Joe’s attention. Seth seemed to be waiting. Or standing guard. The difference hardly mattered.

“What the hell happened?” Seth asked when Jasen, and Joe, came to a stop in front of him.

Joe’s gaze dropped down to the unconscious, uncharacteristically messy woman in his arms.

“What the hell do you think, Hunter?” Jasen said. The door opened and both males stepped a little aside. Jasen turned his focus back to Joe. “Get her inside and stay put.”

As if he needed to be told. Joe inclined his head anyway and angled past them. He noticed Seth slip in behind him and the door click quietly shut, then turned his gaze forward.

He felt as though he’d stepped into a hotel suite. He stood in the makeshift entryway of a fairly good-sized room, filled with simple but high-quality furniture. The curtains were drawn, unsurprisingly, but instead of another massive crystal chandelier the ceiling bore inset lighting. Off to the side was a single, partially closed door. From his angle Joe could see only enough inside to be sure it was some kind of bathroom.

“Let’s get her to the couch,” Seth said, coming up to Joe’s side.

Movement deeper into the room drew enough of Joe’s attention for him to realize they weren’t alone. Which wasn’t going to go over too well.

“Brianna?” Trista whispered her daughter’s name so quietly in the otherwise silent space Joe almost didn’t hear her the first time.

“Oh my God,” Veronica, Seth’s wife, said as she stood as well.

“Brianna.” Trista rushed up until she was practically shoving Joe away from Brianna, barely allowing him time to set her down. She reached out, as if to touch Brianna’s face, but stopped short. Her hand shook until she curled it into a fist. “Poison. She’s been poisoned.” She twisted in place, facing Joe, and narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you do to my daughter?”

Joe frowned. He didn’t give a damn if she didn’t like him, he wasn’t going to accept the blame for this. “Nothing. I didn’t do this. I went back to my room to wash up and change, and when I got to the library…” He swallowed and looked back to Brianna’s pale, motionless face. “I was too late.”

Trista was so close Joe felt the short intake of air she drew after his response. “So you were conveniently absent while my only daughter was being poisoned?”

Joe felt an eye twitch. That word again. “There’s nothing convenient about this,” he said, parroting what he’d told the vampire from the hallway. He met her glare. “We were supposed to be having dinner together, but I was too busy being ambushed by one of your guards to be on time. Jasen checked the other glass, it was poisoned as well. I think we both know he’d have just killed me otherwise if he were suspicious.”

Trista scowled.

“My Queen,” Seth said, deliberately cutting through the tension between them. Sometime during their stare-down he’d moved to his wife’s side. “Jasen wouldn’t have brought Joe to the safe-room if he had suspicions.”

Trista’s lips curled, but when she spoke, her words lacked the venom Joe expected. “And where is Jasen now?”

Joe returned his gaze to Brianna. “Brianna needs blood. Clean blood. He said he was going to get some.” He took a breath, the adrenaline slowly fading, and another possibility struck him. “Kendall.”

“I beg your pardon?” Trista asked, an unusual note of confusion behind the scorn in her voice.

He looked her in the eyes again. “I don’t know her number,” he said. “But if this attack on Brianna was deliberate … shouldn’t someone check on Kendall? Make sure she’s safe?”

A long minute ticked by in which Trista studied him, her face an expressionless mask. No one spoke. Scarcely anyone breathed. Then, finally, Trista took a single step backward and said, “Yes. Brianna would be devastated if anything happened to that girl.” She glanced at her daughter again. “She needs to be cleaned up, too. There’s a change of dress in the wardrobe and plenty of towels in the bath.”

Jasen returned with four packets of blood, all in medical bags, and the head doctor while Joe was in the bathroom with Brianna and Veronica. Brianna’s soiled dress was removed, to be disposed of, and by the time Joe carried Brianna back into the main room in a clean dress Jasen was gone again. To find the persons responsible for the poisoning, apparently. In the meantime, Joe laid Brianna out on the queen-sized mattress on the far side of the room and stepped back, relegated to watching as the doctor set about hooking up an IV with the first blood bag.

“Once she wakes up, she should feed,” the doctor explained as he straightened. “But this should get her system jump-started.” He tapped the hanging bag. “She needs every drop of this, so no one remove that needle until this bag’s empty. No matter what she says.”

“But she will be awake before then, right?” The question was past Joe’s lips before he could stop himself.

“As long as the werewolf blood is the only problem, yes.”