Unhinged: Blood Bond: Parts 4, 5 & 6 (Volume 2) Read online

  At least she hadn’t reprimanded me about Logan, which was what I’d been afraid of in the first place. All she asked is whether I knew where he might have gone.

  And at least I was a hundred dollars richer.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just another night at the ER with the hag, as Steve likes to call her.”

  “She cornered you, huh? She got Dr. Nice earlier.”

  “I know. I witnessed some of it.”

  “She hasn’t asked me about Logan yet.”

  “She only asked me if I knew where he went,” I said. “Mostly we talked about some research she wanted me to do for her. There’s nothing out there to support her hypothesis, and apparently that makes me an idiot.”

  “Maybe it’s out there and you just didn’t find it.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Calm down. Yours. I’m always on your side, Erin.”

  I shook my head. “I know. I’m sorry. I just really didn’t need this tonight.”

  “No one ever does.” Lucy typed something on her computer. “Seriously, though. What do you think is going on with Logan? He always seemed so dedicated.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he got called out of town for a family emergency or something.”

  “But he’d call, wouldn’t he?”

  “You’d think so.”

  Lucy turned to me. “Or maybe he’s…”

  “Dead?” The thought had occurred to me as well. “I don’t think so. Someone would have found him. ID’d him.”

  “Maybe he was abducted by aliens.” She smiled.

  “Get a grip, Luce.” Though if vampires and ghosts were real, why not aliens?

  “What other explanation is there? If he’s not dead, he would have called in. At least the Logan I know would have.”

  She was right. The Logan I knew, or thought I knew, was a dedicated physician who took his duty to his patients very seriously. None of this made sense.

  “The only thing that might have happened is that whoever took the patient also took Logan, and he’s somewhere where he can’t make a call or send an email.”

  That jolted me.

  Dante had been taken. Held against his will.

  Had the same thing happened to Logan?

  No, that was ridiculous.

  I turned to my computer and logged in. Not that it was any of my business, but I checked to see if there were any medical records for Dr. Logan Crown.

  Bingo! He’d been seen in the ER two years ago for a mild concussion. He was also on a high dose of lithium, a mood stabilizer.

  I turned away from the screen. Man. He was probably bipolar. I was really violating his privacy, and I felt like shit for doing it. But I needed to check one more thing. His blood type.

  B positive.

  I made a mental note and got out of the file.

  Lucy was engrossed in her own computer screen, and she’d thought I was nuts when I brought up the rash of B positive blood around the hospital earlier, so I kept it to myself.

  Had Logan had any bite marks on his neck? I hadn’t been looking at the time. I’d just wanted a quick fuck to get Dante out of my mind.

  I had little time to ruminate on it. Sirens shrieked, and Lucy and I ran back out to the ER.

  “Pregnant woman, mid-twenties, seven and a half months along. Her water broke. We’ve got O2 started.”

  Dr. Bonneville was on it. “Do you have a fetal heartbeat?”

  “Yeah, but it’s slow.”

  “The cord is probably compressed. Let’s get her in room four for an ultrasound, stat. This baby is being born tonight. Let the NICU know.”

  “Please, please,” the woman wailed. “Save my baby! Please!”

  “We’ll do everything we can,” I said, trying to soothe the young mother. Whether the baby lived depended on his lung capacity. He was far enough along to survive, but he might have the NICU in his future. “Who’s your obstetrician?”

  “Dr. Mullaney.”

  “I’ll page the doctor on call at her office.”

  “No! I want Dr. Mullaney.” She gritted her teeth. “And I need to push. Now!”

  Her doctor would be Dr. Bonneville, then. There wasn’t time for Dr. Mullaney or anyone else to get here. She still had her maternity pants on, but she was most likely crowning.

  “It’s too soon!” she cried. “Please! Save the baby!”

  “We’ll do everything we can.”

  Once in the room, I got her pants and underwear removed and strapped on the fetal monitor. Normally, with bradycardia, I’d use an internal monitor, but that wasn’t possible. Just as I’d suspected. “She’s crowning, Doctor.”

  Dr. Bonneville came around swiftly. “No time for that ultrasound. Ma’am, this baby is ready to be born.”

  “But it’s too soon!”

  “You’re seven and a half months along. Your baby will have a good chance.”

  “Stop the labor. Please! Give me a shot or something.”

  “We can’t stop the labor now,” I said. “Your water has broken and the baby has descended into the birth canal. He’s coming.”

  “She,” she said through puffs of breath.

  “A baby girl.” I smiled. “How wonderful.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  “We will do everything we can.”

  Dr. Bonneville situated herself between the woman’s legs.

  “It hurts!” the patient wailed.

  I felt for her, but there was no time for an epidural. This baby was determined to get out.

  “I need to call my boyfriend!”

  “We’ll take care of notifying everyone,” I said. “Right now, you need to concentrate on bringing your daughter into the world, okay?”

  “When you feel the next contraction, I want you to give me a good push,” Dr. Bonneville said. “It should be coming in a few seconds. Here it comes. Now…push!”

  The woman screamed as she bore down.

  “Good,” Dr. Bonneville said. “Just one more and we’ll get that head out. I don’t like the bradycardia, Erin. Have you called NICU?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Okay. One more push, and we should have that head out.”

  The woman screamed again, and the little girl’s head broke free. Dr. Bonneville eased the baby’s body out, cut the cord, and handed her off to another nurse. Then she bent back down to deliver the placenta.

  The baby’s skin had a gray tinge. That was never good.

  “She’s not crying,” the mother wailed. “Why isn’t she crying?”

  “They have to suction her mouth out,” I said. “It takes a few seconds.”

  “Apgar three,” the nurse handling the child said.

  Cry, damn it. Cry!

  Then a sound—kind of like an oink. Then another.

  “She’s breathing,” the nurse said.

  A couple more oinks…then a louder cry. Thank God!

  “I want to see her,” the mother said.

  “In a minute,” I said. “It won’t be long.”

  A NICU nurse arrived to take over. “The on-call pediatrician is on his way,” she said to Dr. Bonneville.

  “We’re going to take her to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,” I told the woman.

  “Neonatal?”

  “ICU for newborns. They’ll be able to decide whether she needs help getting oxygen.

  “But I heard her. I heard her cry. I want to hold her!”

  “I understand. But we need to do what’s best for her right now. We need to keep her warm and make sure she’s healthy enough to keep breathing on her own.”

  “I’m what’s best for her. She’s my baby.”

  “Of course you are.” I wiped the sweat off her forehead and forced a smile. “You will see her as soon as you possibly can. Have you named her yet?”

  “My boyfriend wants to call her Sally, after his aunt. But I like Isabelle.”

  “How about Isabelle Sally?” I said.

  “That sounds good.” She ya
wned. “Why am I so tired?”

  “Because your body just worked harder than it ever has before.” I forced a smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Patty. Patty Doyle.”

  “Patty, I’m Erin. We’ll get everyone notified, all right?”

  “May I see the child?” Dr. Bonneville said, putting a fresh pair of rubber gloves on her hands.

  “Of course, Doctor.” The NICU nurse handed Dr. Bonneville the bundle. “Her color is quite good. Her lungs must be mature. There’s a good chance she won’t need incubation.”

  Dr. Bonneville examined the child, and then she did something odd. She placed one of her gloved fingertips on the child’s lips and poked into her mouth.

  Very strange.

  But the other nurses didn’t question her, so I certainly wasn’t about to.

  “Sucking reflex is excellent,” Dr. Bonneville said. “I think she’s going to be fine.”

  I stayed by Patty’s side as the orderlies wheeled her to the service elevator to take her to recovery in the maternity ward.

  “You were so nice to me,” Patty said. “I’d like to name her after you.”

  “What about Isabelle Sally?”

  “It’s going to be Isabelle Erin. Who cares what Liam thinks? He won’t marry me anyway.” She choked out a laugh.

  I had no idea what to say to that, so I simply smiled.

  Until I was ripped away from her by more blaring sirens. “I’ll come visit you when I can,” I said as she disappeared behind the elevator door.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dante

  “I found that website,” I said to Bill. “I almost sent an email, but then I didn’t want to risk it. It seemed like it could be a hoax.”

  “I created a dummy email account to respond,” Bill said. “There are a lot of documents on the site, and they’re all encrypted. Even if I could read them, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “How did you find the blood bond stuff then?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. The documents were all encrypted. I had to put in key words, and then I paid a fee to have the documents with my key words unencrypted. Maybe I should have searched the Texts myself, but”—he shuddered—“I couldn’t open the book again.”

  I’d already tried. I’d have to spend a lot more time studying to even attempt to understand it. My grandfather didn’t need to know that, though. “Does the site have a translation of the Vampyre Texts?” I asked.

  “It purports to, but first of all, the fee to unencrypt all the documents is exorbitant. It cost enough as it is to get the stuff about the blood bond.”

  I had no money. Only what Bill had given me. I truly needed to find a job, but what was I qualified for? I hadn’t even finished high school.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Bill said. “And no, I won’t pay for you to access the full documents on the website.”

  “That’s not what I was thinking, and I wouldn’t ask you to,” I said.

  “Do you know who runs the website, Dad?” my father asked.

  “He goes by the name of Lucien Crown, but I’m sure that’s not his real name.”

  Crown again. I knew I’d heard that name before. But where?

  “Is he a vampire?”

  “He calls himself a nocturnal philosopher, whatever that is,” Bill said. “I have no idea if he’s a vampire.”

  “Who else would have access to the Texts?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He must be a vampire,” I said. “The nocturnal gives it away.”

  “Maybe that’s just what he wants us to think,” Bill said.

  “But he had the answer to the blood bond.”

  “He had an answer. Whether it’s true? Will we ever really know?”

  “But everything you said has happened,” I said.

  “True. That’s very true.”

  “Dad,” my father said, “if this book is as dangerous as you say, why didn’t you destroy it? You still have two copies in this house.”

  “One,” he said with resignation. “Your son and Erin have the other.”

  “That makes no difference. Why didn’t you destroy them after you found the so-called dark passage?”

  “It’s not that simple, Julian. The book contains our history. We can’t change our history, no matter how dark it is.”

  “Humankind has a dark history too, Dad.”

  “I’m not denying that,” Bill said. “But the portion of the Texts I’m talking about has nothing to do with our history. It has to do with what we’re capable of.”

  I opened my mouth, but my grandfather held up his hand. “Don’t. That is all I can say. I’ve already told you too much.”

  I wasn’t about to fight him. Not right now. “I need to get some sleep,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”

  Bill nodded.

  I headed to my bedroom and was about to disrobe to take a shower when my father appeared. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “You might warn me before you do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Dante. But I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You and I need to know what’s in the Texts. I trust that we can handle any darkness we find. After what we’ve been through, darkness will not affect us.”

  Did my father know what I’d been through? Had he been through the same…or worse? A shiver ran through me. Of course he had.

  “We can do it ourselves,” he continued, “but that would take more time than we have. The alternative is to pay the fee to the website.”

  “How can we do that? I have no money. I’ve been living off Bill since I returned, and it’s putting a nasty taste in my mouth. And you’re—”

  Dead. I couldn’t say the word.

  “Dante, I have money. Now that I’m dead, you need to file a death certificate and then you and Emilia can collect my property as my heirs.”

  My eyes popped open. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course, my father had money. My mother had been rich, and he’d inherited everything when she died. Why hadn’t Bill taken care of that when he’d disappeared?

  Because he was hoping his sons were alive, of course. He had no proof of death.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on with my father, Dante,” my father said, “but for the first time, I’m not sure I trust him.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “It’s not just me. He’s seemed off since I got back.”

  “He’s hiding something,” my father agreed. “Something that has him scared, and trust me, your grandfather doesn’t scare easily. If we’re going to figure out what’s going on between you and Erin, we need that book. We’ll need my money to get the translation from the website. With my death certificate, you can get your hands on it. But there’s one thing you’ll need to do first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Recover my body.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Erin

  My shift ended, and after I changed, I decided to head up to maternity to see how Patty was doing. I’d promised her, after all, and I wanted to look in on little Isabelle as well. She’d been over five pounds, so she was probably doing well.

  I checked in with the front desk. “Could you tell me which room Patty Doyle is in? She gave birth last night in the ER. I was her nurse, and I want to say hi and see how she’s doing.”

  “Sure. Let me check.” She scanned her computer screen. “What was the name again?”

  “Doyle. Patty Doyle.”

  “Hmm. I don’t have a Patty Doyle.”

  “Maybe it’s Patricia?”

  “Nope. No Doyle, period.”

  “That’s strange. Her baby got transferred to the NICU.”

  “Let me look there.” She typed a few things and regarded her screen again. “No Doyle in the NICU.” She tapped again. “Or here in our nursery. Are you sure you have the right last name?”

  My heart nearly stopped. “I’m sure. A NICU nurse came to the ER last night
for the baby.”

  “Her name?”

  “I didn’t get her name. But she was there. Ask Dr. Bonneville or the other nurse on duty, Dale. We were both there when she took the baby.”

  “I’m sorry. Neither the mother nor the baby are anywhere in this hospital.”

  Epilogue

  The Queen

  I’m getting closer to my ultimate goal, Dante. Even without you. I needed to let you go to become what you are destined to be. You are strong, Dante. My blood has made you strong. Her blood is making you even stronger.

  But it’s not her blood that will ultimately fulfill you.

  You will be back.

  I already control you.

  I always will.

  The only blood bond you have is with me.

  Prologue

  Dante

  I headed to my bedroom and was about to disrobe to take a shower when my father appeared. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “You might warn me before you do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Dante. But I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You and I need to know what’s in the Texts. I trust that we can handle any darkness we find. After what we’ve been through, darkness will not affect us.”

  Did my father know what I’d been through? Had he been through the same…or worse? A shiver ran through me. Of course he had.

  “We can do it ourselves,” he continued, “but that would take more time than we have. The alternative is to pay the fee to the website.”

  “How can we do that? I have no money. I’ve been living off Bill since I returned, and it’s putting a nasty taste in my mouth. And you’re—”

  Dead. I couldn’t say the word.

  “Dante, I have money. Now that I’m dead, you need to file a death certificate and then you and Emilia can collect my property as my heirs.”

  My eyes popped open. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course, my father had money. My mother had been rich, and he’d inherited everything when she died. Why hadn’t Bill taken care of that when he’d disappeared?