A Shade of Vampire 9: A Bond of Blood Read Free Page B

of Gavin’s vulnerable state. It would take Gavin several hours to recover and he wouldn’t survive if he remained in this hall.
    Now I scanned the room once again for Caleb. He was still battling Xavier. I raced back over to them and gripped Xavier’s shoulder, hauling him back.
    “This one’s mine,” I growled.
    Xavier raced away to find another combatant, leaving Caleb standing in front of me, his chest heaving. Sweat was forming on his brow, and his claws were tipped with Xavier’s blood. His deep brown eyes settled on me, though his expression was still hard to read—he seemed to keep a poker face at all times.
    We circled each other once again.
    “You had us fooled,” I said, my voice low and menacing. “I’ll grant you that much. I didn’t expect you to be such a lowlife. What did it feel like playing on my daughter’s affections? Using her to steal away a pregnant woman? It must have made you feel like a real man…”
    His face remained straight, though I knew my words had stung him from the way his jaw twitched.
    I threw myself at him once again, and we both landed against the bottom of the staircase. I gripped his head and smashed it against the edge of a marble step. Refusing to let him squirm away from me again, I extended my claws as far as they would stretch and pierced them through his chest.
    I exhaled sharply. I could barely believe my own eyes.
    No matter how much pressure I applied, my fist wouldn’t sink further than the surface of his skin—even as my arm muscles bulged from the pressure I was applying.
    Caleb looked as surprised as I.
    Then a cool female voice spoke from behind me.
    “Derek Novak. How good of you all to stop by again.”
    I looked up to see a tall dark-haired witch with cold grey eyes looming over us. She reached down and touched my forehead. The moment her skin touched mine, my surroundings disappeared and all turned to black.

Chapter 6: Sofia
    I woke up to something brushing against my lips. Slowly, my heavy lids opened and I found myself staring into my husband’s eyes. He was shaking my shoulders and kissing me, forcing me to come to.
    He breathed out as soon as my eyes opened. I rubbed my head and sat up on the cold damp floor. I looked around me to see that we were trapped in a cell within a dungeon of some sort. Bodies of familiar vampires lay strewn all around us, still unconscious. Ibrahim sat upright, leaning against the wall in the far corner. I crawled to the gate of our cell and peered through. Several other cells surrounded us, also filled with our vampires and witches. All of them appeared to still be in slumber except for Vivienne and Xavier who were in the cell directly opposite us.
    I looked back around my own cell, and approached my father, who was lying a few feet away from me. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him vigorously until he came to. He cursed beneath his breath as he sat up.
    “Where are we?” I whispered to Derek.
    “I don’t know,” he replied, his voice hoarse.
    “How did she trap us down here like this?” I looked over at Ibrahim. “Were you witches not paying attention? The reason we brought you was to do what we vampires cannot—protect us from the powers of this witch.”
    “We tried,” Ibrahim muttered. “But our powers are useless against this witch. It’s as though she’s drained us of them.”
    “But there are almost a dozen of you!” my father said, rubbing the back of his head. “Combined, how could you not have been able to do something?”
    “Clearly,” Ibrahim said, standing up, impatience now in his voice, “this witch is no ordinary witch.”
    I stared at him, perplexed. “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve never come across a witch so powerful before,” he said. “She is not a witch of The Sanctuary.”
    “What do you mean? All witches come from The Sanctuary,” Derek said, frowning at the warlock.
    Ibrahim shook his head. “Although all witches are originally from there, there are splinter groups