Bound By Blood

Type AB negative, he thought. Her drink of choice.

Zack was wondering if she ever drank anything else when Daryn Korzha appeared in the kitchen. What the hell? Apparently Romanian vampires didn’t need an invitation to enter another’s home. Or maybe that only applied to mortal dwellings. He would have to ask Kaitlyn about that. Later.

Kaitlyn whirled around, her eyes flashing with anger. “What are you doing here?”

“You stupid half-breed, you don’t even know who I am, do you?”

Kaitlyn stared at him. She had rarely felt fear in her life, but she felt it now, along with a sudden certainty that he belonged to the Carpathian vampires. No one else would know of her mixed heritage. The pureblood vampires, inherently linked by centuries, recognized each other on sight, but Kaitlyn lacked that particular talent. It also explained his ability to materialize inside her house. No human could do that.

She lifted her chin, refusing to let him see her fear. “What do you want?” she demanded with far more bravado that she felt.

“Enough talk,” Korzha said with a sneer. One arm snaked out, wrapping around her waist to hold her flush against his body while he jabbed a needle in her arm.

She struggled a moment, then went limp.

In an instant, Zack was inside the house. He didn’t ask questions, simply grabbed Korzha from behind and broke his neck. Kaitlyn slipped from Korzha’s grasp and dropped to the floor. Zack took a moment to make sure she was breathing, then rummaged through the kitchen drawers. A broken neck wouldn’t keep the vampire down for long.

Zack cussed long and loud until he found a large wooden spoon. Grabbing a knife, he quickly fashioned a point on the end of the handle and drove the makeshift stake through Korzha’s heart, all the way to the floor. Dark red blood bubbled up from the killing wound.

Korzha gasped, his hand curling around the stake, but the strength was already draining out of him. He convulsed once, and then lay still, the life fading from his eyes as his skin turned a pasty gray.

Zack rocked back on his heels. It had been a long time since he’d killed another vampire, but he would gladly have dispatched this one again.

He glanced at Kaitlyn. She lay on her side, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow. Figuring she would be out for a while, he carried her into the living room, laid her on the sofa, and covered her with a blanket that had been folded over the back of the couch.

Returning to the kitchen, Zack hoisted Korzha’s body over his shoulder and carried it outside.

He stood in the dark a moment, considering what to do with the body. He grunted softly, wondering if the bodies of vampires who were born and not made disintegrated in the light of day the way his kind did.

Since he wasn’t sure, burying the body seemed like the smart thing to do. Moving with preternatural speed, he found a stretch of deserted ground high in the mountains. Dropping the body unceremoniously on the ground, he quickly dug a deep hole in the soft earth. Needing to make sure Korzha didn’t rise again, Zack ripped the man’s heart from his chest and tossed it and the body into the hole.

Once the corpse was buried, Zack transported himself to his lair, where he washed his hands and changed his clothes.

Minutes later, he was back at Kaitlyn’s house, scrubbing the blood from her kitchen floor.

Kaitlyn groaned softly as consciousness returned. She opened her eyes slowly and glanced around. What was she doing on the sofa? And why did she feel so funny?

Sitting up, she glanced around the room, her eyes widening when she saw Zack sitting in the chair across from the couch.

“What are you doing here?” She frowned as her mind cleared. “Where’s Daryn?” Her gaze darted around the room, but there was no sign of Korzha. “Where is he?” She rubbed her arm. “He jabbed me with a needle.”

“He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’? What did you do?” She stared at Zack, weighing the curtness of his words, the icy expression in his eyes. “Did you . . . is he . . . ?”

Zack nodded. “He’ll never bother you or anyone else again.”

Daryn was dead. It took a moment for the cold reality of it to sink in. Zack had killed a man. She had never killed anyone and now Daryn, a member of the Carpathian Coven—one of her father’s half brothers—was dead. Because of her.

“Hey, are you all right?” Zack asked. “You’re looking a little pale.”

“Do you know what you’ve done?” What would her father say? What would he think, when he found out?

“Saved your butt, that’s what.”

Kaitlyn nodded, then frowned, momentarily distracted. “How did he get in? That’s what I want to know.”

“Are you saying he was never in here before?”

“Exactly.” A shiver of revulsion skittered down her spine. “I would never have invited him into my house.”

Zack grunted thoughtfully. “Do your kind need an invitation?”

“The full-bloods do. I don’t.” She tapped her fingernails on the arm of the sofa. “Since his mother is a witch, I’m wondering if it’s possible that she could have given him some sort of spell to negate the power of the threshold?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Zack said. “I don’t know anything about witches, but I guess anything is possible.”

Kaitlyn stood and began to pace the floor. As her mind cleared, she realized that the fact that Daryn was kin made everything worse. What would her father think when he found out Zack had killed one of their kind? Her father hated the Others; this would just make things worse. Still, Daryn had obviously been up to no good—she refused to think he had intended to kill her—and surely her father wouldn’t condemn Zack for defending her.

She glanced at Zack, suddenly afraid for his future. She had seen her father when he was angry, and she had never forgotten it. She had told Zack her father in a rage was a scary sight, but that didn’t begin to describe it. Her father hadn’t raised his voice or anything like that, but he had suddenly seemed larger than life as he castigated one of his brothers. Preternatural power had rolled off her father, so strong, so overpowering, it seemed to suck the very air from the room. Her uncle had reeled backward, blood running from his nose and mouth as if he had been struck, even though her father had never raised his hand. She had known instinctively that, had he wished it, her father could have killed Ciprian.

And now, because of her, Zack’s life might be in danger, although once she explained what had happened, she was sure her father would understand. She had to believe that.

“Why was Korzha after you?” Zack asked.

“I don’t know.” Sitting on the sofa again, she fidgeted with her hair. “I haven’t known him very long. In fact, I met him about the same time I met you.”

Zack leaned forward, his forearms braced on his knees. “He was like you, a Romanian vampire.” It wasn’t a question.

She nodded. “He was one of my father’s half brothers.”

“Go on.”

“My grandfather had a lot of wives.” That was an understatement; he’d had twenty. “And they had a lot of children.” Another understatement. “Usually, only my grandfather’s favorite wife and her children lived at the Fortress with him. The other wives all had homes elsewhere because no one really liked my grandmother back then.” Kaitlyn smiled inwardly. Her mother had told her that Liliana’s demeanor had changed drastically after Kaitlyn was born. Liliana had grown kinder, Elena had said, more thoughtful of others.

Zack leaned back in his chair, contemplating what Kaitlyn had said. Vampires marrying, having children, living in castles like old royalty. It was a hell of a story.

“I didn’t grow up at the Fortress,” Kaitlyn said, “so I don’t know all of my father’s half brothers and sisters, or their mothers. My grandfather’s wives all kept their maiden names so he would know which children belonged to which wife.”

“Sounds like he had quite a harem.”

Kaitlyn laughed. “I always thought so.”

“So, all things considered, it appears that Korzha was after you for some reason. Do you think he intended to kidnap you, and if so, what was his motive?”

“I don’t have any idea.” She chewed on her lower lip a moment. “Years ago, before I was born, my father killed one of Daryn’s brothers.” It was an old story, one well-known by covens throughout the world.

Zack grunted softly. “Sounds like a good, old-fashioned case of revenge to me.”

“After more than twenty years?” It seemed a farfetched idea, and yet, in the back of her mind, she remembered her father calling to check up on her not long ago. He had said something about a rumor he had heard, and almost in the same breath, he had mentioned Daryn and his mother. Was it possible Nadiya was behind it all?

When she asked Zack what he thought about it, he shrugged. “You know what they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.”

“It would have to be frozen by now,” Kaitlyn retorted. “Zack, you have to leave here. Or I do. If my father finds out what happened . . . You know how he feels about the Others. And if he finds out you killed one of us . . .” She shuddered, not wanting to dwell on what her father might do. She had no future with Zack. She knew that, but she didn’t want anything to happen to him.

“I’m not leaving,” Zack said. “I like it here.”

“Then I’ll go.”

“I’m not afraid of your father.”

“Well, you should be!”

“Calm down, girl. There’s no reason for you to be so upset. And no reason for your father to be angry with me. I haven’t done anything except probably save your life. I’d think he’d be grateful for that.”

He was right. She was overreacting because Zack was one of the Others. But she couldn’t help it. Her father might accept her dating a mortal; dating someone he considered an enemy of her people—even if that someone had saved her life—was something else entirely.