Page 47 of Bonded By Blood
Joe swallowed down a sudden lump in his throat. The truth was, his opinion on this subject would probably be clearer if Trista were wrong. “I didn’t say that.” He took a small, steadying breath. There was one thing that was clear. One thing that he believed Brianna would also disagree with. “But there’s no reason to commit the same crime you’re punishing, is there? Her son, wherever he is, he’s innocent. He didn’t have anything to do with the poisoning.”
“So?” Trista challenged. “If I were going to be satisfied with merely killing this pathetic wretch—” She gestured dismissively toward Matilda. “I’d have already dismembered her. Her life is so much less significant, it hardly balances the scale.”
Slowly, Joe shook his head. “I get that.” In a twisted way, for different reasons mostly, he even kind of agreed. That was probably contributing to the guilt souring his stomach. He glanced at Matilda, who’d stopped sobbing and was watching him with wide, wary eyes. She looked both hopeful and fearful simultaneously. A disgusting idea occurred to him, and Joe returned his focus to Trista. “What you really want … is to make her suffer, right?”
“It’s no less than what she deserves.”
He wondered then, in the back of his mind, if vampires went to Hell when they died. He was pretty sure he’d never asked that question. But he shoved the pointless thought down and pushed ahead—for the sake of the one remaining innocent party involved. “Then what about Turning her, and sending her to live with whatever Family is nearest her son?”
Somehow, Matilda’s eyes got wider. Her heartbeat faltered.
“Oh?” Trista tapped her chin and a slow, wicked smile tipped the edges of her lips.
“There would have to be rules,” Joe said, forcing himself to continue. If he wanted to sell it, he had to make it good. Or … well, not. “And consequences to breaking them. So she would be required to live near her closest living family, but forbidden to interact with them at all. Not even in passing. And if her son moves, or his children move after he’s passed on, maybe she has to move to a nearby area, too. An eternity of ‘look but don’t touch’.”
“Well,” Trista said, her tone thoughtful. She looked down at Matilda. “Would you look at that. Joseph here has put in a lot of effort to keep your son alive. Wasn’t that kind of him?”
Matilda opened her mouth, her voice shaking, but no intelligible words came out. Her eyes darted between them, as if she wasn’t sure what she should say. And maybe she wasn’t. Joe had done a deplorably good job of backing her into a corner.
Trista shoved the diamond-encrusted toe of her shoe beneath Matilda. “Get up, wretch. Today you die. But tomorrow you start a new, unending life—where you’ll have a front-row seat to the future of the family you abandoned nearly two decades ago. You’ll have all the protections and benefits of whatever Family is in the area, at least befitting the station you’re given. So long as you obey this rule.” When Matilda—with Jasen’s less than gentle help—found her feet again, Trista grasped her chin and looked her straight in the eyes. “Never, for any reason, make contact with your family. If they see you on the street and smile, don’t smile back. If they’re about to get hit by a car in a crosswalk, look away. Because if you acknowledge them, speak to them, or gods forbid try to get to know them, they will begin to die. One. By. One.” She released Matilda’s chin and stepped back. “And you’ll have a front-row seat for that, too.”
Joe was going to be sick. He’d figured out a way, apparently, to spare the life of the guy not involved in the conversation, but at a terrible price.
Matilda choked on a renewed sob. “Th-that’s too cruel, my Queen…”
“You’ve no one to blame but yourself.” Trista turned toward Joe and offered him a dark smile. “That was a wonderful idea, Joseph. Well done.” She grabbed Matilda by the shoulder and jerked the smaller female around, all but throwing her into Joe’s arms. “Now Turn her for me. Convince me whose side you’re on.”
He caught Matilda on reflex, holding her by a shoulder and a bicep, and stared at Trista uncomprehendingly for a second. She wanted him to what?
“No!” Matilda begged, her voice weak and wet. She nearly fell to the floor again and he had to tighten his grip to keep her standing.
Trista arched a brow. “Go on.”
Fuck. She was serious. Of course she was serious.
Behind her, Jasen crossed his arms. Waiting. Watching. Judging.
“I … I’ve never even bitten someone,” Joe said, cringing a little at how lame he sounded. He knew the rules as to how a person could be Turned, but actually doing it was a whole new thing. It required killing them.
“Well,” Trista said without an ounce of sympathy. “Then it’s a good thing biting isn’t mandatory.” She lifted one hand and waved her fingers at him in a universal gesture to hurry up.
Everything seemed to slow and Matilda’s choked cries rang in Joe’s ears.
If he didn’t do it, Trista would go with her original plan. Both Matilda and her son would die. Now there was also the chance Trista would use his refusal as an excuse to do something unpleasant to him, whether that meant death, exile, or something else entirely. But if he did do it, he was killing someone he wasn’t convinced deserved to die.
Joe lowered his gaze to the crying woman, his gut twisting. He ran his tongue along one of his fangs in an effort to psych himself up and a new perspective occurred to him. Yes, he had to kill her. But she’d wake back up. He certainly didn’t feel dead. In a lot of ways, he felt more alive than he ever had. And while the future that awaited her wasn’t as free as his, she did still have one. That had to count for something.
“M-mercy,” Matilda begged, her voice barely a whisper. “Please…”
I’m sorry. Joe adjusted his grip, folding his entire arm around her chest and bringing her back up against him. Trista was right in that biting wasn’t necessary, but he wasn’t versed in any of this. He couldn’t think of another, or at least an easier, way. So he used Matilda’s hair to pull her head aside and plunged his new fangs into the skin over her shoulder next to her throat. He kept his eyes shut as she choked on a garbled outcry, and for the first time since his Turn the taste of fresh human blood was sour on his tongue. Still, he gulped twice before easing back and raising his free arm.
This time he bit into his own wrist. It hurt like hell, something he stupidly hadn’t considered, but he did his best to ignore the pain and pressed his bleeding wrist to the sloppy wound he’d left on Matilda. He pressed hard and held there until the searing pain faded to a dull sting. Then he counted to twenty, trying to let the blood circulate at least to her heart, before he grabbed her small chin in his hand and—despite her weak struggling—snapped her neck.
He nearly threw up when she went limp in his arms.
Instead, he held her upright, but he didn’t know where to look. He’d done what he’d been supposed to. The best he could do, given the circumstances. But he felt… He’d never felt so low.
Jasen stepped in front of him and took Matilda’s corpse from his arms, tossing her over his shoulder like a rucksack. “I’ll get her set up.”