Page 73 of Bonded By Blood
Chapter Nineteen
“Uncle won’t be coming with us. He’s dead.” Her mother’s words, ages old, in a language Brianna didn’t think even she spoke any longer, echoed through her memory as she stared at the face of the impossible. The very uncle she’d believed deceased so long ago. Her mother’s eldest brother. The first born of her mother’s generation. The first generation born with fangs.
The first true vampire.
“Uncle…?” How is this possible? Brianna felt as if she could barely breathe. She’d rushed from the house as soon as they’d gotten a decent lock on Kendall’s location, more desperate than she could remember being in decades. Convinced, in her bones, that she had to find Kendall and Joe before something terrible happened. But this … this wasn’t what she’d imagined.
The elderly man in front of her smiled, slowly, and took a step forward. Moving as though he didn’t have a care. It was possible he didn’t. “I hear you’re going by ‘Brianna’ these days,” he said. His tone was calm, and his voice still held a hint of an old European accent.
Brianna swallowed. “I am.” What was she supposed to say in this situation?
“I’ve adopted the moniker of Boris,” he said. When he was still several feet back, he stopped, and held out his hand. Not for a handshake, but as if in invitation. “Come with me, Brianna. We’ve much to discuss. There’s no need for you or I to shed blood this night.”
No. She didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t know how he was still alive. But she understood that he’d deliberately—knowingly—pitted himself against his sister, her mother, and gathered allies to his side. Allies who had spilled blood in his name, in her home. Brianna curled her hands into fists at her sides. “You betrayed us.”
The edges of his lips dipped in a faint frown. “No, niece,” he said. “I’m merely done letting my baby sister play her games. The betrayal came from her.”
Brianna shook her head. She couldn’t let him get to her.
But he’d distracted her long enough, regardless. The sound of a large, heavy impact accompanied distinctly male grunting and Kendall let loose a scream behind her.
Eyes widening, Brianna twisted in place as the scent of blood wafted into the air once more. Not human blood, but vampire.
“Fucking Slayer!” Troy cried, agony rending his voice as he reared back. Blood sprayed wide as the stub that had been his left arm swung, the separated limb decaying as it fell to the ground, useless.
Brianna took in the scene properly, following the trail of blood backward from the stumbling Wilson to the extended machete in Adrian Colt’s steady grip. Behind Adrian, Joe had grabbed Kendall back to him and turned her away, putting himself between her and Troy’s attack, exposing his back by necessity. It had to have all happened too fast for him to have seen Adrian’s machete.
Troy stumbled back, clutching at the stump of his arm. “I’m gonna enjoy ripping you open, bastard,” he said with a strained snarl.
“Moron,” Tobias said, coming up to stand beside his brother. “It’s hard to rip open a person with only one arm. While they’re still breathing.”
Adrian spun his weapon for an adjusted grip. “You shits are all talk.”
Boris made a scoffing sound. “Why do all Slayers speak with such vulgarity?”
No! Brianna reacted on instinct, spinning and throwing her arms out, catching her uncle around the chest as he dashed forward. She dug her heels into the ground to brace herself in her effort to hold him back, grateful for her choice to wear flats for this outing. She cried out, having to use more strength to restrain him than she had had to use probably since the night she’d dug through the wreckage of Kendall’s family’s car. And then some.
“Brianna!” Joe exclaimed behind her, concern in his voice.
She heard Kendall mutter words of shock simultaneously.
“Damn bitch,” Tobias said with a growl. “Get your hands off—”
“Uh-uh,” Adrian interrupted. “I’m your playmate, Wilson.”
Boris took a step backward, grabbed one of Brianna’s forearms, and twisted sharply. “I might respect your loyalty, niece,” he said as her arm screamed in protest. “But it’s misplaced.”
Brianna spoke through gritted teeth. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”
Boris scowled, holding her arm tightly. “Your associates are already dead, niece. Accept it. My quarrel is with your mother. I’m willing to let you live, if you’re able to swear fealty to me.”
Pain burned, hot and fast, up her arm as he increased the pressure. It reminded her that he was, and would always be, stronger. His dark eyes stared unblinkingly at her, waiting for her response, perhaps already knowing what it was and simply waiting for her to voice the words. There was no flicker of warmth behind the blackness of his gaze. No remorse, or tenderness of any sort, on his face. He held her arm in an inescapable vice, so tight she could hear her own bone beginning to crack, and he wanted her to just accept the impending deaths of her mother, her daughter, her lover. All in one fell swoop.
Brianna had never been more furious in her life.
She glared into his unfeeling stare and said, “I’ll send you to Hell myself if you harm them.”
That seemed to amuse him. His lips kicked up at the corner, as if he were laughing inside. “Is that so?” He suddenly jerked his arm sharply to the side, throwing Brianna into the same building she’d thrown the brothers into moments earlier. As her body soared through the air, she heard him speak again, but not to her. “It doesn’t take two of you to gut a Slayer. Bleed the girl.”