Bound by Blood

Chapter 8

Gregor slammed his fist against the steel door, furious that he could not follow her. Furious at the sun.

“Liar!”

His scream bounced off the walls and echoed like a ghost in the empty club. A white rectangle of light danced across his retinas. He dug his palms into his eye sockets, trying to make the burning image go away, but that only made it worse.

“Fuck!”

He was going to lose her.

“Goddamn motherfucking shit!”

He gave her a half hour to get home, then called her. When she didn’t pick up, he pled with her answering machine, feeling like an idiot. “Madelena, talk to me. Call me.”

An hour later he did it again. Then he swore he’d hit himself over the head with a hammer before he did it a third time.

A vampyr needed to sleep by day, more than a human needs to sleep by night. His body knew when the sun was out and shut down in response. As Gregor turned cold, his thoughts became increasingly sluggish and depressed. Maybe she wasn’t lying. He had to admit that she’d never shown any interest in him beyond sex. In fact, she’d warned him off repeatedly.

Maybe she didn’t like him at all.

Maybe he’d convinced himself that he wanted her because he believed it was inevitable. Under normal circumstances he’d never put up with her bullshit, that was sure as hell. The whole thing felt like a curse, a spell gone wrong.

Everything was wrong.

And he was so fucking hungry he could suck on a rat. He had to sleep. Then he could hunt. Then he could think. So he anesthetized himself with several shots of vodka and sealed himself in his bedroom behind a triple-walled sliding steel door. The bed sheets reeked of their sex. He fell into a light, troubled sleep.

When he woke he dressed and stalked grimly into the street. It was just dark. He took the first person he saw, some hipster kid plugged into his iPod. Gregor hauled him into an alley and drained him as far as he dared. Well, maybe a little further than that. No one was getting off easy that night.

The sour blood made him wretch, but he swallowed because he had to. He wiped the kid’s memory of the bite and shoved him out of the alley.

The first feeding did nothing more than give Gregor the strength for a second feeding. For this one he went all the way to Central Park, because he needed to run in the woods, to hunt, to be wild.

He climbed a tree and squatted on a branch, scanning for a likely prospect among the evening runners and dog walkers. Maybe Mikhail was right. Maybe this was the best way to feed. Maybe this was the best way to interact with humans, period.

A female runner jogged past his perch, her breath labored in the cold night air. The fact that her ass looked a little like Madelena’s might have had something to do with his choice. He dropped from the branch, silent as a dream. In three long strides he caught up with her and spun her off the path into the bushes. Instead of stunning her right away, he let her fight. She kicked and struggled and screamed against his palm. He only held her closer.

The struggling stopped when he bit her. It always did. Her panicked blood spurted down his throat in pulsing hot bursts, but her fear did nothing to improve the flavor.

She was not Madelena.

Though Gregor tried not to listen to the stories that lived in human blood, he caught images of people she loved, places she’d been. He didn’t want to know. He shoved her away and she fell to the ground. Dragging her to her feet, he whispered, “Forget me. Run.”

Convinced that he could find someone who tasted decent if he kept trying, he began to grab and sample anyone who came in his reach, hardly bothering to conceal his actions. Each one tasted worse than the last, but their blood mingled in his veins and gave him a powerful rush.

He spotted a sleek young suit walking along with his attaché in one hand and his phone in the other. Gregor spread his arms and smiled like an old friend. Surprised, the man flipped his phone shut, and Gregor embraced him. Observers would mistake them for lovers. They would not see the struggle. He bit high, sinking his teeth into the cologne-scented flesh just beneath the jaw. This one tasted worse than all the others, so bad he had to draw back and spit the blood onto the ground, where it mingled with standing water and dead leaves.

A shadow stepped between them. Mikhail. No one else would dare.

“Go.” Gregor and Mikhail said it at the same time. The man ran.

Mikhail stood close, so close his breath warmed Gregor’s cheek. “I wondered who was hunting on my grounds, leaving a trail of fear.” When Mikhail was this quiet it meant he was angry. “I’d mistake you for new-turned trash, Grisha.”

Gregor spat again, trying to clear his mouth of the taste of cat piss and ashes. “Just walk on, Mikhail. I need this.”

“You’re blood drunk.” Mikhail’s hand closed on his shoulder. “Go home.”

Gregor knocked his hand away. “I will feed when I want, where I want, as much as I want.”

“Listen to yourself,” Mikhail said, his lip curling with disgust. “You are a Faustin!”

“I’d rather be trash.” Gregor walked away, heading deeper into the park, not out of it.

He expected Mikhail to come after him. What he did not expect was that he’d hit him from behind.

Whump! The blow knocked Gregor face down in the dead winter grass. He flipped over just in time to catch Mikhail’s leg and pull it from under him. They grappled on the ground, silent, their blows powerful. They fought rarely, but when they did, it was real. And they knew one another too well not to know exactly how to best harm the other.

Mikhail pinned him down and hammered on his kidneys. Gregor twisted free just enough to jam his elbow in Mikhail’s face. A spray of blood flavored the air, and Mikhail reeled back. Then they were both on their feet, throwing punches. This was where Gregor was strongest, where he wanted to stay.

Blood drunk or not, the violence cleared Gregor’s mind. He lined up his blows carefully. A jab, a feint, and a sharp uppercut to Mikhail’s jaw. Beautiful. It snapped his head back. That punch would have knocked anyone else out, but Gregor was fighting the strongest vampyr in New York, maybe in America. Soon he’d take over leadership of the family.

In the next second he hit Mikhail twice in the solar plexus, doubling him over. Gregor felt happy for the first time that night. He lifted his leg to kick him in the head, but Mikhail recovered fast and caught his foot. Gregor tumbled.

Mikhail caught him by the collar and heaved him into the air, roaring with the effort. For a moment Gregor was flying, weightless—until his spine wrapped around a tree trunk.

The tree knocked the wind from him and he hit the ground hard, smacking his head on a tree root. He had a moment then to consider that the good thing about fighting Mikhail was that you never got the feeling he was holding back on you.

Instinct alone saved him from Mikhail’s next blow, because all he could see was stars. Blind, he threw out a fist, met flesh, got in a couple of random strikes before Mikhail was on top of him, his knee on his chest, his forearm a steel bar against his windpipe.

“Give!”

Gregor tried to unbalance him, but Mikhail was immovable. He weighed a thousand pounds.

“Give!” He put his weight on his forearm, crushing Gregor’s throat. Instead of panicking, Gregor relaxed. When everything was fucked up, it was good to know a few things for certain. One was pain. He understood pain, how he felt now, how he’d feel tomorrow. He also understood precedence. Fighting Mikhail was a grand gesture, but always futile, because he was Eldest. But he had to test him once in a while, and test himself, because Gregor was Second.

He was in no hurry to surrender, though his lungs screamed for air. But when the will to live finally overcame his stubbornness, he raised his arms above his head and opened his palms. His vision was closing around the edges, but he could see Mikhail’s blood-caked face clear enough. Seeing his gesture, Mikhail smiled like an angel and kissed Gregor on the lips.

“Now tell me why you’re being such an asshole.”

Only then did he lift his arm, and Gregor choked his way back to life and breath.

“I don’t see why you gave her any choice.” Mikhail said after Gregor told him his story. They still sat underneath the same tree, both of them too sore and tired to go anywhere else.

“What, was I supposed to tie her to the bed?”

“Yes.” Mikhail was perfectly serious.

“You’re saying I should drive to Queens, tie her up and stuff her in the trunk?”

Mikhail shrugged. “She’s human. You don’t even need rope. Just tell her to get in the trunk.”

The idea of trying that was funny enough to make him laugh—almost. “You haven’t met her. I can push her a little, but no more.”

“No fascination?” Now Mikhail looked mildly curious. “She’s that resistant? It must be part of the package—why she’s a fit mate for you.”

“Yeah, and is a messed-up heart part of the package? Is it part of the package that I can’t feed on her? Is it part of the package that she won’t have anything to do with me? I’m telling you, this is fucked up.”

“She’s not lying about the heart, is she?”

“No, her pulse is whacked.”

“But I don’t understand. You tasted her when you bonded to her. She was okay then?”

Gregor had not considered that. He thought back. It was hard to say. “I didn’t taste her heart’s blood, just bruise blood.”

Mikhail grimaced. “Why would you do that?”

“I thought I owed her something after I ran over her.” That was his mistake. He should have just let the ambulance take her away. If he had, he’d still be sane. “I wasn’t hungry, I just wanted to clean up her wounds.”

“You ran her over—with your car?” Mikhail laughed. He didn’t do that very often. He sounded like a coughing seal. Gregor scowled. It really wasn’t funny.

Well, maybe it was a little funny.

“Look,” Mikhail said, wiping his eyes. “I’m sure this can be worked out. If she’s your intended, of course you can feed from her. How are you going to breed with her if you can’t convert her? Go get her, and I’ll find someone to consult on this.”