Page 29 of Entombed By Blood

Then there are the two extra thrall bonds.

I can feel them, no matter what Silas tried to tell me earlier. Now—with my bloodlust temporarily sated—I know there aren’t just four. All six bonds are nascent, but they’re definitely all there.

Those bonds will grow as I interact with my thralls until I can barely imagine life without them. They’ll link me to them until we can sense each other’s emotions and feel each other’s pain. That’s what happened with…

I cringe away from the memory, shutting it down with a viciousness that hurts.

No. I won’t let these bonds grow.

Never again.

Chapter Ten

Gideon

“She wants to go outside.”

My head snaps up from the paperwork littering my desk, and I pin Silas with a glare.

“It’s barely been twenty-four hours. She’s not ready.”

“She’s smarter than you think,” he argues. “She knows the risks.”

“Cain doesn’t want her to leave.” As much as I hate the bastard, he’s right. “She’ll snap if she scents the first hint of blood.”

“Maybe fresh air will do her good?”

“Then take her to the roof garden.”

“And risk her jumping?”

My jaw clenches at the reminder. I’m going to have to report her attempt to take her own life tonight. What kind of idiot was I to leave her unsupervised just because Silas and Finn said she needed space?

I rub my eyes and groan before responding. “Take your brother.” At least Vane is fast enough to catch her if she tries.

Silas pins me with a look. “I think you should spend some more time with her. She needs to trust us. All of us. That isn’t going to happen if you keep your distance.”

That may be so, but I need to keep a clear head if we’re going to pull this off. That vampire has distraction written all over her, and I’d be a fool to put the safety of the pack at risk by letting her put me under her spell.

“I have to stretch my legs,” I mutter, cutting off the discussion and tapping my ear discreetly so he knows exactly where I’m going.

Draven’s search for bugs has come up with plenty, as expected, but we can’t disable them without giving the game away.

“There have been some new developments as well. Keep her occupied, but keep her here.” I feel like a bastard for ordering it, but it makes sense.

Cain will feel safest if he knows exactly where she is, and Evelyn isn’t stable enough to be moved yet, anyway. The safer Cain thinks he is, the less likely he is to change his mind and shove her back in the ground.

I shove out of my chair and push past Silas into the hall.

“Where is she now?” I ask.

“In the Den, asleep.”

“Cain said she was to sleep—”

“I know...” Silas makes a face. “I’ll move her in a second. She drifted off in the middle of a movie. Fuck, I had to explain CGI to her after she got confused by ‘the talking lions.’ Then, when she asked me what it stood for, I had to search it, which led to me explaining what the internet was, and how computers and screens worked...” he trails off, his expression bleak.

“A lot happened in the last eighteen decades.”