Unchained: Blood Bond Saga: Volume One Read online

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Though she could be harsh at times, I liked Dr. Thomas. She was my favorite of the four ER docs I worked with on the night shift. My least favorite was Dr. Zabrina Bonneville. She was brilliant, but she lacked bedside manner not only with her patients but with staff as well.

  I prepared the neb treatment and rushed to room eight. The poor baby was on his mother’s lap, barking like a seal. Yup. That was croup. Parents tended to get over-worried about the common cough.

  “I’m Erin,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Cathy Murphy,” the woman said, “and this is Brian.”

  “Hi there, Brian.” I smiled at the cute baby, red in the face from his cough. I turned back to his mother. “I know how worried you must be, but croup is rarely serious. We’re going to have him feeling better in no time.” I asked Cathy my litany of questions and got the right dosage prepared for Brian. Within ten minutes, he was breathing Albuterol from the oxygen mask.

  “I’ll be back to check on you in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, if you have any trouble, just push the red button on the intercom and someone will be right with you.”

  As I left room eight, more EMTs rushed in. “Male, late twenties. Unconscious. Found naked in the street. Possibly homeless. BP a little low, other vitals fine. His eyes are open, but we can’t wake him up.”

  “Let’s get him into room four right away,” I said. “Looks like an OD to me. We’ll need to run a drug panel. I’ll get the doc—” I gasped.

  The unconscious man on the gurney had grabbed my wrist.

  Chapter Three

  Dante

  Lust rolled through me. I stood against a sink in the men’s room where Erin—her name was Erin—had pushed me, and I glanced in the mirror.

  My jaw dropped. I looked like a wild man, my hair in disarray, several days’ growth of dark beard on my jawline, blood drying on my cheeks and chin. But that in itself wasn’t what astounded me. The last time I’d seen my reflection, an eighteen-year-old high school student had stared back at me. Now I was looking at a man’s jaw, a man’s profile, a man’s beard. The skin around my eyes showed slight signs of age, a few wrinkles here and there. My front teeth no longer had a gap between them. They’d moved together somehow. Maybe when my wisdom teeth had erupted. I remembered the pain when they broke through my gums, pain that had seemed like nothing after what I’d been through.

  So long ago now…as if they were only fuzzy memories from a dream. Or a nightmare.

  Still, I was a mess. I was lucky she hadn’t run screaming.

  Instead, she was trying to help me. Help I didn’t deserve after desecrating her blood bank. Who was she? And why hadn’t she responded to my attempt to glamour her?

  Her scent had intoxicated me. She was one of them—the humans with dark hair and fair skin, whose blood tasted better than the most exotic nectar. Her eyes were a light green, almost as light as a peridot, and they sparkled with fire and ice simultaneously.

  My gums began to tingle once more. Just the thought of Erin’s blood awakened my urge to feed.

  I’d gorged on the bagged blood, enough that I should have been sated. I couldn’t go back for more. Someone would have been notified to clean up by now.

  More bagged blood wouldn’t help anyway. I wanted her blood.

  I tried to push the hunger from my mind and concentrate on something more important.

  I was free.

  Unchained from the shackles that had bound me for so many years.

  So why did I still feel like I was imprisoned?

  I was still in New Orleans. Was my family still here? Dad? Em? River? Uncle Braedon? Grandpa Bill? Bill might be over a hundred years old by now. He could very well be gone.

  Even if they were still here, I had no idea how to get in touch with them.

  Erin. Erin was my only chance.

  What if she forgot? Didn’t come back for me?

  I resisted the urge to lick the dried blood from my face and hands—it wouldn’t satisfy me anyway—and furiously scrubbed at them.

  Erin.

  I needed her blood. I needed her.

  I’d felt it. She needed something from me as well. I wasn’t sure what, but I’d felt the tug. She wanted to touch me. Couldn’t stop herself from putting her hand on my skin, even though I must have looked like an animal after a kill with blood streaming from my lips.

  I’d brushed her away, for fear I’d lose the last thread of self-control keeping me from lunging toward her, sinking my teeth into her soft flesh, and taking from her the sustenance I craved.

  Hunger still clawed at me. Not just for Erin’s blood, but for Erin herself. My groin tightened.

  Not again.

  I willed the erection down. Couldn’t go there. Not now. I’d had erections during captivity and no way to release, with my hands always bound. I certainly had no way to release now. How long had I been gone? I had no idea. Only that it had been years. Many, many years.

  Erin had told me to stay put, that she’d come back for me. Could I trust her? Why would she want to help me?

  I had to get out of here. If I stayed in one place for too long, I risked being tracked by her. Vampires had no scent to each other, but we had other ways of keeping tabs. I had no doubt she had the ability to find me.

  I grasped the edge of the sink, steadying myself.

  I pulled against the leather restraints. “Who the hell are you? Why am I here?”

  The woman was dazzling…in a terrifying way. She was masked, except for her icy blue eyes. When she smiled, her fangs were already long and sharp.

  “Don’t you recognize your queen, Dante?”

  She was delusional. We recognized the government of the places we lived. In this case, the United States of America, which didn’t have a queen.

  My clothes were gone. I lay naked, my wrists and ankles shackled to a table. Or was it a bed?

  “So young and beautiful. I can smell the testosterone flowing through you, turning your boy’s body into a man’s. How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  I was eighteen. A late bloomer, something I found pretty embarrassing. My cousin, River, who was a month younger than I, had matured before I had. My voice had finally changed two years ago, which was the signal that a male vampire had become fertile.

  “You are no queen,” I said through clenched teeth. “Let me go.”

  She laughed. “You will recognize me as your queen soon enough.”

  “Let me go!” I demanded once more. “My father will come for me. My uncle. My grandfather. They are more powerful than you could ever hope to be.”

  She snarled, her fangs bared. “They’re already on their way, sweet one. Something I was counting on.”

  A thud pulled me out of the nightmare.

  I’d fallen to the hard tile floor.

  That horrible night, so long ago, when I’d awakened in her dungeon.

  Escape. I needed to flee now. Erin had promised to help, but I couldn’t wait. Not when she could already be on my trail. I left the men’s room with my face and hands now clean, but my clothes were a different matter. They were tattered—they’d come from a homeless man, after all—and covered in blood. I sneaked down a hallway until I found a locker room. I traded what I was wearing for a pair of jeans that were slightly small on me and a black hoodie. I didn’t like stealing, but I had no choice.

  I raced around, looking for the back door where I’d entered.

  No! A pull. Erin was mentally tugging me toward something. Something I’d seen before.

  I ambled into the emergency room, trying to look inconspicuous, when something tight wrapped around my wrist, and I flinched. I rubbed at it but found only the calluses from the leather bindings I had finally left behind.

  Then I saw it.

  A man on a gurney had grabbed Erin’s wrist. The need to protect her hurled into me like a cyclone. I inhaled, yet I smelled only Erin’s scent. But I recognized the man.

  “Why won’t he l
et go?” Erin asked, pleading.

  “I don’t know.” A woman in a white coat was looking into the man’s eyes with a flashlight or something. “Pupils are dilated. We need to take some blood for a drug panel.”

  I knew what to do. I quickly walked toward the gurney and gazed into the homeless man’s eyes, letting go of the glamour that had been holding him since I’d run from the cop earlier. In my hurry to get away, I hadn’t released him.

  The doctor was too involved in her work to notice me, but when the man closed his eyes and let go of Erin’s hand, she looked up.

  “You!” she said.

  I turned and walked swiftly toward the first door I could find.

  Chapter Four

  Erin

  He’d cleaned up nicely.

  “Whatever was going on seems to be resolved,” Dr. Thomas was saying. “Let’s get him in an exam room. Erin, we need to get his blood for the panel.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” The words came out of my mouth automatically because the only thing in my thoughts was the man with the dark and fiery eyes now walking out the door.

  So I wouldn’t see him again. So what? He’d vandalized a blood bank because he hadn’t found any food in what he thought was a regular refrigerator. I had better things to do than lust after him, like getting back to the exam room and drawing blood for this poor guy’s drug panel.

  I assessed him. His teeth looked decent, so probably not meth. Opioids most likely. We were seeing a lot of that lately.

  I entered the exam room. He had regained consciousness, and Dr. Thomas was talking to him while she examined him.

  “Here’s the nurse now. Erin, Mr. Lincoln has agreed to the drug panel.”

  “Good. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Lincoln. Can you make a fist for me, sir?”

  His brown eyes were wide as he looked at me. “Did you see him?”

  I tied the rubber banding around his upper arm. “See who?”

  “The vampire.”

  I looked to Dr. Thomas, who shook her head slightly at me. The man was on something, clearly. That was Dr. Thomas’s signal for “just go with it.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t.” I tapped at the vein on the inside of his elbow. “You’re going to feel a quick prick, okay?”

  He nodded. “I’m used to it.”

  I’ll bet he is. I didn’t see any tracks on his arm though. I drew two vials of blood and then bandaged the puncture site. “All good, Mr. Lincoln.”

  Dr. Thomas was looking into his eyes again. “Dilation is gone. Interesting. How’s your vision, Mr. Lincoln? Can you see all right?”

  “I lost my glasses a year ago,” he said.

  “I see. We’ll have your results soon. In the meantime, we need to keep you here for observation.” Dr. Thomas wrote a few notes in his chart and then hung it on the door and smiled. “If you need anything, Erin will see that you get it.” She left the room.

  He grabbed my wrist again.

  I yanked my arm away, and this time he let go.

  “I’m not on drugs,” he said.

  “I understand.” I patted his arm. The lab report would tell the truth. “I need to do some rounds. Just push the red button if you need anything.”

  “I’m not on drugs,” he said again.

  I sighed and left the room. That’s what they all said. It was a continual enigma to me how people who lived on the streets always seemed to find money to get high. I was living paycheck to paycheck. Good thing I wasn’t an addict. I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

  I worked on two more cases before my shift ended at sunrise. I yawned as I retrieved my purse from my locker and changed into my regular clothes. Home, breakfast, and then bed. My routine.

  I loved the night shift. I’d always been sort of nocturnal, being more comfortable during the night. I was a classic introvert, and fewer people were around at nighttime, except for all-night partyers, which were plentiful here, but I was not in any shape or form a party girl. Nope, just plain old Erin Hamilton, an ER nurse from Columbus, Ohio, who’d moved to New Orleans for an old boyfriend three years ago. The relationship had ended, but I’d stayed. I liked it here. My brother was here. My best friend, Lucy Cyrus, was here. She was also an ER nurse on the night shift.

  I exited the hospital and headed toward the parking lot where my car was—

  Someone jerked me backward.

  A hand over my mouth muffled my scream.

  “Please. You have to help me.”

  The man. I struggled against his grasp, my heart pounding. “Help!” I yelled, though it came out muffled.

  “Please. I won’t hurt you. I promise. I need your help.” He eased his hand from my lips. “Please don’t scream.”

  Was he kidding? I stepped forward to run, but he grabbed me again. I looked around, hoping someone had seen us.

  The parking lot was eerily vacant.

  “Please,” he said again. “I will not hurt you.”

  I nodded. I had nowhere to run anyway, no one to turn to for help. I’d have to take him at his word. I looked into his eyes. I didn’t see anything to fear in them. In fact, they seemed to speak to me. They seemed to say I need you. The desire to help him rose again within me.

  He eased his hand from my mouth.

  “I told you to stay put,” I said.

  “I know. I would have, but I had…something I’d left unattended.”

  I drew in a deep breath, attempting to slow my racing pulse. “Do you want me to call someone for you? Do you need a hot meal? There’s a soup kitchen not too far from here.”

  “No!” he said urgently. “I need to get out of the sun. My skin burns easily.”

  He was quite fair-skinned. I hated my own pale skin, but on him it looked good. His hair was in disarray, and he was wearing jeans that were way too small, but there was no denying how attractive he was.

  “I hear you. Mine does too. But it looks kind of cloudy today so far.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “All right.” I fumbled in my purse and pulled out a tube of sunscreen. “Try this.”

  He smeared some onto his face. The rest of his body was covered by clothes. He handed the tube back to me. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I paused, not sure what to do next. My head said to go to my car and drive home. My legs, though, stayed planted.

  “Please. Help me.”

  “I’ll show you where the soup kitchen is, okay?”

  “No, I mean—” He jerked his head to the left. “Get me out of here. Please.”

  “Hey, I don’t even know your—”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Over there”—I gestured—“but—”

  He grabbed onto me. “Go!”

  I went.

  I didn’t know why, but my legs seemed to. I walked briskly toward my car in the hospital staff lot.

  When he was in the passenger seat of my VW Beetle, I turned on the ignition.

  And had no idea where I was going.

  Chapter Five

  Dante

  Erin turned to me, her green eyes dazzling. “Where do you need me to take you?”

  Good question. I had no idea where my family was, or if they even still existed. She had threatened to annihilate them all more than once to keep me in submission. I needed a place to lie low for a while. I needed access to a phone.

  Erin would have one.

  I stared into her mesmerizing eyes. “Your place.”

  “My place?” She backed the car out of her parking spot and began driving. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Dante. Dante Gabriel.”

  “Huh. That name sounds slightly familiar to me. Where do you live?” Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I’m assuming you are…”

  “Homeless?” In truth, I might be. I had no idea where home was at this point. Before I showed up on someone’s doorstep, I needed to let my family know I was alive.

/>   I was back.

  She cleared her throat. “Yeah. We see a lot of you guys in the ER, and—”

  “I’m not homeless. At least not in the sense that you think. I have a home. At least I had one.”

  “Most homeless people had a home at one time,” she said. “Do you need…a fix or something?”

  What was she talking about? “I’m not on drugs.” No, the only substances I needed were food and blood. I wasn’t sure how she would react to the second part of that. Even now, as I inhaled her intoxicating scent, the blood lust was rising in me. “Are you a doctor?”

  “No. A nurse. I thought about medical school, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of ending up six figures in debt.”

  “I used to want to be a doctor,” I said. I hadn’t consciously allowed myself to think about that in a long time. I was taken when I was eighteen years old. If I hadn’t been—if I’d been allowed to live my life—I might be a doctor by now.

  The days had run together. I glanced at Erin’s cell phone sitting in the cup holder between our seats, concentrating on the date. She had one of those newfangled smartphones. She had shown me hers once.

  Fuck. Years. At least a decade, I’d bet. Half of my life had been stolen. I could never be a doctor now. I hadn’t even made it to my high school graduation.

  I had to figure out what to do about money. My family had lived in New Orleans for generations. We had money. We had history in this city. We were accepted here. My father was probably still in this city somewhere, and so was my grandfather. I just had to find them.

  If they were still alive.

  “Are you going to answer me, or what?”

  I glanced over at Erin. “Sorry. What?”

  “So what stopped you?”

  “Stopped me from what?”

  “From becoming a doctor? Did you zone out or something?”

  “Just couldn’t get it together, I guess.” Major lie. I had been a driven young person. My father and my grandfather had supported me in everything I did. I had no doubt that, but for her, I’d be a doctor now.