Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,44
break the compulsion.”
Ben shifted forward from the corner he’d been standing in. “Am I the only one confused here?” He turned to Trace like a deer caught in someone’s headlights. “What’s he talking about?”
“He’s talking about bonding Jemma to another Rev.” Trace’s angry eyes flew back to Gabriel. “I’m presuming you’re nominating yourself, right?”
“Not particularly,” gritted Gabriel, clearly offended. “If you have a better suggestion, I am all ears.”
No one said a word. Because there wasn’t a better suggestion. In fact, up until Gabriel showed up, we had a total of zero ideas combined.
“I think it’s worth a try,” I said, having had enough of these chains, this cellar, and this entire situation. At this point, I’d probably drink a vat of virgin blood if it meant I could get the heck out of there and go home.
“You’re not seriously considering this, are you?” asked Trace, pulling back from me to read my expression. “You’ll be swapping one vampire bond for another.”
“What other choice do I have?” I asked him, giving him yet another opportunity to come up with an alternative. Any alternative at all. “At least I know Gabriel won’t hurt me or try to use the bond against me.” Heck, if I’d known this was an option, I probably would’ve done it months ago.
“Technically, we would not be fully bloodbonded,” interjected Gabriel as though that made much of a difference to any of us. “The purpose of this is not to solidify a new bloodbond, but to simply weaken an existing one.”
“Exactly.” I nodded my head as if to prove to myself that I actually had the slightest idea of what I was getting myself into. “So, how do we do this?” I asked, turning back to Gabriel.
Trace ran his hands through his hair and circled away from me, consequently sending a handful of searing knives shooting through my brain. Whatever I had felt at the beginning of the night was nothing compared to the riot I had thrashing through my mind just then. Apparently, the longer you resisted a compulsion, the more painful it became.
“Trace!” I cried out in anguish.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said as he rushed back to my side, making sure to keep his body as close to mine as the laws of physics would allow. “Gabriel?” he prompted, having a sudden change of heart.
“Right. Yes.” Gabriel nodded, though there wasn’t a semblance of confidence to be found anywhere on his person. He looked nervous and unsure, and frankly, afraid. I imagined it had a lot to do with the bloodsharing aspect since Gabriel was pretty much a virgin when it came to that. “I’m going to have to draw some blood from you this time,” he informed, his eyes brimming with regret.
“This time?” asked Trace, bouncing glances between the two of us. “You’ve done this with him before?” He looked at me like I’d just announced that I’d been sleeping with three thousand Revenants for the fun of it.
“Just once…after the Veil. I needed to get back on my feet. He was doing me a favor,” I explained, doing my best to keep Trace’s fury focused on me and not on Gabriel. “Very reluctantly I might add.”
At my mention of the Veil, Trace backed down. He knew how horrible I’d come out of there and that I probably wouldn’t even be here had it not been for my regular infusions of vampire blood from Dominic.
“Alright,” he said, his hold strengthening around me. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Gabriel bowed his head in a nod and then took a small step toward me before hesitating. He looked unsure of where he needed to be standing. At this rate, we were never going to get out of here tonight.
“Should we give you guys some privacy?” asked Ben, already hovering awkwardly by the door, his laptop tucked under his arm. He looked wholly uncomfortable with the whole thing, but I couldn’t really blame him. He was a Shifter and not at all familiar with the Revenant world, and certainly not this aspect of it.
I was the lone Anakim star in that regard.
“You can wait upstairs,” said Trace, purposely not including himself, which was good since I couldn’t stand to be separated from him at that moment anyway. “We’ll call you when we’re done.”
Relief flooded his face as he started to leave.
“We’re going to need the keys though,” I called out and then gave my shackled hands a noisy shake.
“Right. Obviously,” said Ben, looking bashful as he dug