Page 59 of A Bond Beyond Blood
She tipped her head up to look at me and I traced the length of her nose, then couldn’t help myself as my fingers traced the shape of her full lips.“How long has he been gone?”
“Since long before the treaty.A hundred years or so, give or take a handful?When he disappeared, all hell broke loose in my world.”At the quirk of her brow, I remembered what I’d said earlier about this beingourworld, and quickly amended, “All hell broke loose amongvampires.”
She sighed then, settling her check against my chest once more.“How did you know who he was if he disappeared so long ago?”
I shrugged.“It’s difficult to explain, but...I just knew.My veins thrummed from being so close to someone so powerful.I’d never felt that before.”
She hummed softly, sounding like I might lose her to sleep again any second now.
“And I’d heard about him, of course...stories passed down between fathers and sons, from generation to generation.Whispers among vampires about that shocking white hair and those freaky blue eyes.”
She snorted, then exhaled a deep breath.“They’re pretty unique,” she murmured.“But I wouldn’t say freaky.”After a moment of listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, I began to wonder if my girl had fallen asleep, but then she asked, “Why do you think he’s come back?”The words were slow and whisper-soft as she started to drift off to sleep.
“That’s the million-dollar question, little Fiorino.”
Within moments, her breathing settled back into the heavy, steady rhythm of sedative-induced slumber.
I exhaled deeply, staring at the dresser across the room and the framed photograph of her father front and center on the top.There was a link here that I hadn’t put together yet, dots I needed to connect.She’d sought me out within weeks after her father died, begging me to teach her how to fight—and I had a feeling Franco Fiorino was the key.She’d had an obvious vendetta, a revenge plot she’d never survive.And, had I been a better man, I would have told her as much, would have sent her away that very day.
But my heart was hers the moment she walked into my gym.
And I’m a selfish asshole.
I wouldn’t give her up then and I didn’t intend to now, though I feared that when she learned the truth, I wouldn’t have much choice in the matter.When she discovered that even though I trained her week after week, took her money as if it was even fair to do so, molded her into the strong and powerful fighter currently wrapped in my arms...she wasstillnever going to be strong enough to take on a vampire.
She’d have every right to leave me when she learned the truth.
I lied to her, and in doing so, I risked her life, her safety—two things I vowed to protect the moment I locked eyes with Jacqueline Fiorino.
I didn’t deserve this woman, but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to do everything in my power to earn her love going forward.
Chapter Eighteen
Gannon
‘Who turned you?’
