Page 77 of Bonded By Blood

Chapter Twenty

Troy Wilson was already gone when Joe made it back to the scene of the fight. What remained of Tobias seemed to have been stomped on at least one more time, but was more or less where it had been. There was no other sign of a vampire corpse, discounting the equally-gray half of an arm on the ground, so Troy had obviously fled. Whether he’d attempted to pursue Joe previously, and simply been too slow, or chickened out, or run away altogether, Joe had no idea. He didn’t much care.

Boris seemed to be toying with Jasen and Colt, although Colt was mostly keeping his distance, trying to stay alive in a fight that was a few lifetimes beyond his reach as a human combatant. Jasen, however, didn’t appear to care whether he lived or died. Watching him fight was distracting, and briefly fascinating, but the fight wasn’t what Joe was there for. Not really. So he looked away.

His chest tightened painfully when he spotted Brianna, on the ground again, this time clutching her side. There was too much blood in the air for Joe’s nose to tell him anything useful, but the deep maroon slowly drying her dress told him everything. She’d been hurt again. Hurt worse. All at once he remembered finding her unconscious in a pool of her own vomit, rendered helpless from werewolf blood, unable to even cry for help.

Joe dashed past the fight, ignoring the risk and the blood and the potentially life-ending weapons being tossed around, until he was on his knees beside her. “Brianna,” he whispered, just in case she’d been too distracted to see him coming.

She looked over at him, her eyes wide for a moment. “Why did you come back? You had escaped!”

Joe frowned and broke from her stare to see what he could of her injury. He didn’t know how recently she’d fed, and that would play a factor in how well she healed. Also, if she’d somehow wound up with one of Colt’s stakes in her torso, that would hinder her healing, too. “How bad is it?” he asked, instead of answering her question. “Can you stand?” If she could at least stand, he could do the bulk of the running. Either vampires had adrenaline, too, or they also had enhanced stamina to go with their other heightened abilities, and regardless, Joe was grateful for it. Otherwise, he’d already be exhausted, and he couldn’t afford to be too tired yet.

Brianna resisted his attempt to move her arm out of the way. “You can’t be here, Joe,” she said insistently. “You have to flee.” She reached out with the hand not hiding her wounded side and pulled his chin up, dragging his focus back to her face. And he saw something worse than tears in her eyes, something he could only label as defeat. “We can’t win this fight. But you can survive, if you run.”

A lump formed in his throat. She thought she was going to die here, like this? “Brianna, no.” There was no way. Why wouldn’t she at least let him take her with him?

She tried offering him a smile and slipped her fingers into his hairline. “I’m not a fighter, Joe. All I can do is take the time Jasen’s buying me to heal, and then use my strength to buy you time.” She leaned in and bumped her forehead against his. “Please, take care of Kendall. She won’t be able to accept something like this.”

Joe growled and sank his fingers into her hair, pulling her face properly against his for a short, sloppy kiss. As he dragged his lips against hers, he whispered, “Neither will I.”

Brianna managed to smile at him despite the echo of a male grunt nearby, indicating someone on their side had taken an injury. “I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t understanding him, then. Joe let out a breath and softened his voice. “Just so you know, I’m doing this because I love you.” There were probably more romantic ways to say that, but when the threat of death was imminent, it seemed more important to get the words out than to wait for some mysterious atmosphere. When her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly in surprise, Joe swooped in and scooped her up in his arms. He was kind of taking advantage of a miserable situation and he knew it, and he hated it, but if that meant she lived, well, then that was worth it.

Behind them, Colt muttered, “Dammit!” The twang from his crossbow resounded through the air, accompanying the scent of another wooden stake.

“No,” Brianna said almost simultaneously. But she didn’t push against him like Kendall had, she merely braced a hand on his chest and curled her fingers into his shirt. “Joe, it’s too dangerous!”

“I know,” Joe said as he angled to sprint past the fight and away once more. He wasn’t as sure of his escape this time, but he had to try. Even if the sight of Jasen on the ground, dripping blood everywhere, was more than a little disheartening.

Then something rushed past him, almost invisible in the dark of the night, even to Joe’s eyes, until it collided with Boris’s upper body and forced the vampire back. The smaller, darker body shifted with a bone-chilling growl, until it stood taller and upright, but still covered in thick, black fur. The fur was short and coarse and did little to disguise the power of the beast that had joined the fight.

Adam. And if Adam was there, more wolves were undoubtedly on their way.

Boris brushed an invisible fur off his chest. He curled a lip over his elongated fang. “The local Alpha pup, I presume.”

Adam growled in response and spread his arms wide enough that the evening light glinted off his claws.

Joe gave himself a shake. This wasn’t the time to be reliving his days as a fascinated observer. Adam had given him an opening, however small, and he needed to take it. He said a silent prayer for his friend’s survival—for all of their survival—tightened his hold on the almost eerily-still woman in his arms, and ran.

He did his best to ignore the sounds of the fight as they resumed behind him.

He dodged incoming wolves, on a mission to assist their Alpha.

He deftly avoided the following rush of vampires, all racing in the direction he was coming from. Most of them ignored him. A couple stumbled when they realized who he held against his chest. But none tried to stop, or even intercept, him, so he kept running.

It was the worst kind of déjà vu.

****

Her body hurt, in ways she’d mostly forgotten, yet Brianna could barely feel the pain. What hurt more was her heart. She didn’t know how much of Boris’s story about Trista’s betrayal-by-abandonment was true, but there was no denying the bottom line. Her uncle—her biological uncle from eras past—had not only survived the mob that had ambushed them the last night she’d seen him, he’d thrived. In secret.

And it seemed he’d held that secrecy against his sister. An everlasting grudge.

Brianna wouldn’t have believed such a claim from almost anyone if the story had simply been told to her. But she couldn’t deny what she’d seen, or the familiar voice pulled from the foggy depths of her memory. She’d been old enough when she’d believed him lost to mourn him, and old enough for some part of her to retain memories of happier times. When they’d all been a family.

Had her mother knowingly turned her back on her living brother? Could she have believed she had a chance to save him, but forsaken it? Or was Trista as ignorant of Boris’s survival as Brianna had been? All of those questions spun around in her mind as Joe carried her back to the mansion. Those, and one more important one. If Boris was truly determined to kill them … how would they survive?