Page 39 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
She looked at Dr. Woods. “You saw?”
He shook his head, and Axel said, “The good doctor would need to lower his shields to let me into his mind before I could project into it, and we don’t have enough trust for that.”
She turned to Axel. “One bitch, not a bunch of burglars. They were in my memoryandthe dreams. There was never a woman in either.”
“How does that change things?” Dr. Woods asked.
She looked at him, considering. “I don’t think it changes anything major. It’s a perception thing. I’ve had a bad reaction to men in groups, dressed all in black, when that wasn’t accurate. I’ve never been afraid of a sole woman.”
“What else is new?”
“I’ve dreamed of trying to attack the bad guys, but that wasn’t in my memories. Axel says one of the reasons he saved me, rather than going to protocol and killing me, was because I’d tried to fight the vampire, so I guess it’s good I did, since it appears to have saved my life.”
“And how do you feel about the fact he intended to kill everyone in the house when he first entered?”
“It was his…” She looked at Axel. “Your job, right? You were supposed to kill all the bad vampires, and if they’d already bitten someone, the human had to disappear. No fang marks in bodies.”
He gave a tiny nod, and she studied his face. “Are you always this calm? Does anything ever bother you?”
“Nothing fazed me until a brave little five-year-old attacked a Celrau vampire to defend her mother.” His voice was quiet, steady. “And then stood despite having two shattered legs, her weight on her hands, leaning on a table, and screamed at the monster again in a desperate attempt to save the mother she loved.”
A muscle jumped under her left eye. Her fingers tightened on the tea bottle. “I can’t be that person to you anymore. I have to be who I am now.”
“He has something else to explain,” Dr. Woods said.
Axel’s eyes shifted, a quick glance at Dr. Woods and back to her.
“Vampires have a way to blood bond a human to them,” Axel said. “It’s supposed to be an involved ceremony where blood is swapped and oaths are exchanged in both directions. There’s a specific magic a vampire must draw upon, and I did not do that.”
He met her gaze, hugged her to him a tiny bit more. “You were bleeding. I was bleeding — the Celrau clawed my arm seconds before I tore her head off, and…” He exhaled slowly. “The only explanation that fits is your blood seeped into my wounds, and mine into yours. And I was mentally…”
He looked away for a breath. Met her gaze again. “I was putting a claim on you, even then.”
His voice went quieter. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I wouldn’t have done it this way.”
There was apology in his eyes. Not just regret, something deeper. Unease.
“It’s forbidden, to blood bond a child. If it had fully taken, you shouldn’t have aged another day. You’d still be that small five-year-old child. I can’t explain how it happened,orhow you’ve grown into an adult.”
“So, it’s like we did the ceremony?” she asked.
A short nod. “We are blood bonded. I promise I didn’t realize until I drank your blood for the oath. Marco and Dr. Woods picked up on it immediately, however.”
He sighed. “Marco says he didn’t feel the connection between us when they came through the Haunted Swamp that first night, while he immediately picked up on it when he interrupted our billiards game, so it seems logical it’s been there all along in some kind of hibernation, and the blood exchange during the oath kicked it the rest of the way into being, but it’s just a theory.”
“And blood bonds don’t act that way, but I’ve never heard of someone blood bonding a five-year-old before,” Dr. Woods told her, “and you clearly grew up, so…” He lifted his hands, palms up.
Axel stroked her cheek, and she looked back to him. He looked genuinely sorry.
“I don’t have any answers for you, and I’m not likely to have them in the near future, if ever. I’m hesitant to ask around, because drawing attention could bring people we’d rather avoid.”
“He’s right about that,” Dr. Woods said.
Aury ran through all the reasons vampires might want to bond a human to them, and asked Dr. Woods, “My guess is all the benefits go to the vampire, and few to the human? Can you explain why vampires choose to bond humans to them, please?”
“There are varying levels, from making them a thrall to taking them as a lifelong companion, but the primary reasons for most are to have a daywalker servant, someone to guard them while the sun reigns, to handle banking, or wait for the cable repair person, back when that was a thing.”
“I’m not a thrall, so…” She looked at Axel. “You didn’t touch me in my memories, that means it happened during the time you had mepaused.”
