Page 19 of A Bond Beyond Blood (The Butcher’s Daughter Trilogy #1)

V inny

Elias Bristol was back, and he’d done a number on my girl. Dr. Alfred Bianchi had come and gone, leaving Jacqueline with three stitches in her left temple and a mild sedative coursing through her veins.

He’d cleaned and bandaged up any open wounds, of which there were multiple, confirmed that her tail bone was not broken—thankfully—just battered from, as she explained, Elias ‘tossing her across the room like a ragdoll’.

The doc confirmed what I’d already surmised: Jacqueline had multiple bruised ribs.

The ribs are some of the strongest bones in the human body. The fact that Elias beat Jacqueline so badly that he damaged even one of them was enough for a death warrant—had he been anyone else.

Unfortunately, as my king and one of only a handful of born vampires remaining across the continents, he was untouchable.

My hands were tied, and being helpless wasn’t something I was used to.

The only way to treat a rib injury of that nature was with rest, ice, and breathing exercises.

My girl wasn’t happy about the prospect of being down for six to eight weeks, but I’d already put out a call to find a few extra hands to help out downstairs, and she’d reached out to her employees to see who could pick up the slack over the next few weeks.

If worse came to worse, I’d bribe some of the guys down at the gym to help, maybe trade a few months of membership dues or something.

With Jacqueline sleeping peacefully in the primary bedroom, I found myself pacing the length of the apartment, up and down the hallway, left alone with my thoughts and consumed by questions I had no way of answering.

The Vampire King had returned.

Where had he been all this time? And why come here ? Why now ?

What was the link to Jacqueline Fiorino?

Was Elias really the vampire she’d been planning to fight all this time?

Christ. How the fuck had I managed to get myself embroiled in something so reckless?

Training a human to go up against a vampire was one thing, but to go up against a king ? A born vampire?

She never stood a chance.

I scrubbed my hand down the back of my neck as guilt burned through my veins. She never stood a chance regardless, king or otherwise. Even that little buttagots Jacqueline used to date could rip her apart—and he was brand new.

I plopped down onto the couch and hung my head back, staring up at the ceiling.

I’d come so close to losing her, all because I’d been selfish.

I’d never told her the truth, never explained that no matter how diligently she trained or how strong she became, she’d never be able to fight a vampire and come out of that battle alive.

Her foolish vendetta and my selfishness could have ripped her from my grasp forever.

Elias could have ended her life with ease—

Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees, frowning as I considered that fact.

Because he didn’t.

I tilted my head. He didn’t kill her when he easily could have. He beat the shit out of her, yes, but he’d claimed she’d asked for that fight. Knowing Jacqueline, I don’t doubt that for a second. My girl loves to throw down, and if she’d been waiting to face him...

Shaking my head, I ran my hands down my face.

He could have destroyed her, but he chose to spare her instead.

Why?

It obviously had something to do with the fact that his blood supposedly ran through Jacqueline’s veins, which would explain the hint of vampire I’d always picked up in her scent.

And there was also the small detail of his ability to read her mind, a skill I’d never heard of within the vampire community.

But, as a born vampire, a royal , maybe he had abilities the rest of us schmucks didn’t possess—or know about.

A thought that was quite unsettling.

My nostrils flared as I picked up a scent, registering the young vampire in the parking lot a split second before his foot hit the bottom step on the exterior stairwell.

This fucking kid. The last thing I needed to deal with right now was some baby vamp ex-boyfriend who couldn’t take a fucking hint.

I rose to my feet with a growl, then yanked Jacqueline’s front door open just as the kid raised his hand to knock.

“Jackie— you ,” he snarled. “Where is she? What did you do to her?” He lunged for me but I took a step back, chuckling when he couldn’t get past the threshold.

Unlike his easy entrance into the butcher shop below, Jacqueline’s apartment wasn’t public property and, therefore, a vampire would need explicit invitation to enter.

She’d revoked his right to enter the butcher shop; I highly doubted she’d ever let this punk inside her home again.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I thought she told you to kick rocks, kid.”

He sniffed. “I’m not a kid. I’m not even that much younger than you.”

I snorted. “Maybe so. But I’ve got three-quarters of a century on you.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked like he might be about to argue, but then his nostrils flared as he picked up on her scent again and his gaze darted past me, frantically searching for his ex-girlfriend once more.

“I can smell her blood,” he said, accusation dripping from each word.

“There’s a lot of it.” His wide eyes flicked to the wooden planks below his feet as if he could see through the balcony and down into the shop, where Eli had tossed her around. “She’s hurt.”

“No shit?” I winked. “You’ll make a great detective someday, little buddy.”

His lips pressed into a hard line, but he didn’t bare his teeth at me this time. “What did you do to her? Where is she?”

“She’s resting.”

“If you’ve hurt her, I’ll—”

“You’ll what ?” I asked, stepping over the threshold. “Fight me?” I tilted my head. “I’d love to see you try.”

Nostrils flaring, he puffed up his chest— adorable —and bent to the side to look past me again as he yelled, “Jackie—”

I was on him before he could finish calling her name, one hand around his throat and the other clapped over his mouth.

Pressing the kid against the balcony railing, I leaned into him, holding his gaze as I said, “Lower your fucking voice or I’ll relieve you of your vocal cords.

Capisce ?” He nodded, or tried to anyway, and I loosened my grip but didn’t let go completely.

“I already told you... she’s resting . And if you ever insinuate that I’ve laid a hand on her again, I’ll shatter both of yours. ”

The kid winced.

“You’ll heal. In time.” I shrugged. “But the wait will be excruciating, each minuscule sliver of bone fusing itself back together, piece by painful piece" I shivered at the image.

His mouth opened but no sound came out, so I released his throat and gripped his biceps instead, lifting him an inch off the ground.

“Jacqueline has been injured, but she’s fine.” I grinned wickedly to drive home my next point. “My girl’s in very capable hands.”

But he’d stopped listening. Panic twisted the kid’s features as he glanced behind him at the parking lot below.

I frowned as his fear rolled off of him in waves.

A vampire could survive a fall from the second story no problem, would land on his feet and walk away without even a scratch, but he didn’t behave like someone who knew that.

I’d only met the kid twice now and it was glaringly obvious that no one had bothered to show him the ropes.

First, with his sad show of defiance when we met in the shop downstairs— shit, was that just this morning?

—blatantly proving that no one had taught him to respect his elders.

And now, with his lack of understanding about his own vampiric abilities.

He gulped audibly and I narrowed my eyes. “Who turned you?”

“I-I don’t know.” He glanced behind him again, eyes wild as he assessed the drop from the balcony to the lot below. “P-please don’t—”

I sighed. A vampire with a fear of heights? This was the last thing I wanted to deal with right now.

But someone needed to take this kid under their wing, and while that sure as shit wasn’t going to be me , I could at least teach him a lesson.

First one’s on the house. I glanced down the street in both directions, listening as I did so, but at this late hour on Christmas Eve, the only people not tucked snugly into bed or frantically building play structures and putting tricycles together in their living rooms were vampires and Santa Claus—neither of whom would blink twice at what I was about to do.

With a flash of teeth, I said, “It’s your lucky day, Garrett.”

“Gannon.”

“I’m going to do you a favor, Greg.”

He looked behind him once more, then back at me, his terror evident in those comically wide eyes.

“Thank me later.” With that, I hauled his ass up and over the railing, sending him flying over the cars parked below before he could realize what had happened.

He screamed as he soared through the air, but then, as I knew he would, the baby vamp landed in a crouch on his feet a few yards past the parking lot. He looked around, quickly assessing the situation, then his dark brown eyes lifted to meet mine—

Then he bent at the waist and vomited a sea of crimson all over the pavement.

I frowned as I watched. What a waste.

When he finished, he swiped his sleeve across his mouth, then looked up at me with awe in those wide eyes.

I raised my hands. “Like I said, thank me later.”

He raced toward me, a streak of black and denim hauling ass up the stairs, stopping just a foot away from me. “I landed on my feet.”

“Very observant.”

“H-how?”

I bared my fangs in a sinister grin. “How else?”

He looked back and forth between me, the parking lot, the balcony railing, then finally settled on me again, that prior terror seeping from his eyes, quickly being replaced with wild excitement. “Do it again.”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“Come on,” he whined.

“ Madon’ , I said no.”

“Bro—”

I raised my hand. “I am not, nor will I ever be, your bro .”

“Will I land on my feet every time?”

I shrugged. “Generally speaking, yes.”

“Can we fly?”