Page 57 of Bonded By Blood
Chapter Fifteen
The breath of relief that wanted to rush from her lungs froze in her chest when Brianna finally laid eyes on Joe again. He was standing on the veranda, in full sun, eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenched. Even from the other side of the tinted window, Brianna could see the reddening of his skin.
Moving quickly, she dashed to the doorway of her room and hollered for the guard to fetch a full bottle of fresh blood. She made sure her tone was too commanding to leave room for questions. Then she turned and dashed back through the room, into the sunlight, and physically hauled her crazy lover off the veranda. Only once he’d been satisfactorily flung onto the bed did she allow herself to still.
Joe made a startled, pained sound as the breath rushed from his lungs with the impact.
Brianna planted her hands on her hips. “What in the world were you doing out there? Have you lost your mind? Too much sun could drive you mad!”
Joe winced and hissed as he sat up properly, his skin still an angry shade of red. “I just … wanted to know what it was like.”
Her mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”
He didn’t look up at her, but instead turned his hands over in his lap, studying his palms.
She swung an arm out toward the veranda. “Five seconds with an arm in the light would have given you the answer. That’s not what that was, Joe.”
His hands curled into fists. The line of his lips thinned as if he were biting them shut.
Brianna lowered her arms to her sides. Curiosity wasn’t what had driven him to stand outside and they both knew it. Her mother had told her everything, finally, and his behavior made sense now. He was wracked with guilt. Guilt he didn’t deserve. “Joe, look at me.”
He lifted his head, but his gaze never quite focused on hers.
“I know what happened,” she said, hoping to engage him. “Mother finally told me. She also told me she was testing you, because she’s unreasonable like that.”
He swallowed, glanced at her again, and relaxed his fists. “I’m sorry.”
Brianna frowned. She hadn’t been angling for an apology.
“I’m—” He choked, his throat likely swollen with a mix of overwhelming emotion and physical strain from exposure to sunlight. “I’m so sorry.” Joe raked a hand through his hair. “She was innocent, Brianna. She didn’t deserve it. The only thing she was guilty of was being human. But I—”
“You Turned her,” Brianna said, cutting him off before he could use a different word. She lowered to her knees and pulled on his arms until his hands were in hers. “And the worst of that was the moment where her life left her body, right? That’s what’s haunting you?” She gave his hands a squeeze and his gaze finally met hers. “But you’re forgetting that, by now, she’s awake again. Just like you are.”
Joe scowled at her. “She didn’t deserve it, Brianna.”
“That’s true.” His frustrated expression softened, surprised by her easy agreement. “But did you have another choice? Did you choose the worst fate for her just because? Or would my mother have done something even more unthinkable?”
He swallowed hard.
Brianna ran her thumbs along the backs of his hands. His skin was still hot to the touch. “Listen to me, Joe. What happened was horrible. I wish I could say you’ll walk it off after a good night’s sleep, but you won’t. It’ll haunt you, probably for a while. But it will get easier. What really matters is what you do next. How you move forward.”
Joe scoffed under his breath and looked away. “You mean, if I repeat my mistakes?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I mean if you learn from your experiences—good or bad. Life is an experience, Joe. Every aspect.”
He pulled his hands from her grip and leaned bodily backward, away from her. “What exactly am I supposed to learn from murdering, and Turning, a victimized woman?”
Brianna sighed. She’d asked herself a dozen times during her search for Joe why her mother had deemed it necessary to “test” him. But questioning her mother’s line of thought had rarely gotten her anywhere over the millennia.
A soft tap at the door preceded the intrusion of another vampire, the one she’d sent after the blood. He held a sealed bottle of B-negative and a towel. “The blood you ordered, My Lady.”
Brianna stood, smoothed out her skirt, and accepted the items. “Thank you. That will be all.” After he’d stepped out of the room and shut the door behind himself, Brianna turned and laid the towel on the nightstand.
“How do you know that’s safe?” Joe’s question was almost hesitant. The concern was reminiscent of the man she’d met in that warehouse store, but the delivery was all wrong. He was more changed now than he’d been after Tobias’ attack.
Somehow, that realization bothered her tremendously. Brianna had quite liked that man. She wanted him back. So she faced him, bottle in hand, and indicated the seal around the top. “See this? If it’s poisoned, it was poisoned when it was bottled. There’s nothing I can do about that.” Her mother would likely have insisted she have someone else take the first swallow, just to be safe. But her mother’s ways were the problem currently, so she twisted off the cap herself and brought the bottle to her lips. A small taste would suffice, and prevent her utter collapse.
Joe’s eyes widened and he started, as if to stop her, but he was weak from sun exposure. He didn’t even make it off the bed before the blood touched her tongue. Sweet and coppery, thick and deliciously satisfying, but a tad bit cooler than she preferred. Otherwise perfect.