Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) by Faith Hunter Page A

time read nine twenty-seven. “I don’t care what you do or why she brought you here. I don’t care if you rescue puppies and heal the sick with a touch of your hand. I’m going to do what she wants. So shut up.” She placed the glass, newly filled with water, at his lips.
    He drank, and when he spoke, his voice was stronger. “Why? Why are you going to do what she wants?”
    The girl’s hands stilled. She was so thin that light from the closest lantern spilled through her flesh, turning her bones dark and red, ghostlike and ephemeral. “She tried to force me as her blood-servant”—she glanced away, and when she swallowed, it looked painful—“but she couldn’t bind me. I don’t know why. But when she failed, she lost control. She nearly drained me.”
    â€œForcing a blood bond is illegal according to Mithran law. So is draining humans.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWe could go to the Master of the City. Leo Pellissier is big on vampire law and order. He would make her stop. Punish her.”
    â€œI can’t.” She tried to take a breath, and it sounded like silk tearing, wet and painful along her throat. “I tried to get away. Three times. And this last time . . .” Her voice broke, mewling like a kitten crushed in a fist. Tears filled her eyes, and she rolled her lips in, as if sealing in a memory and its pain. Her breath was tortured, and she pressed her pale hand to her even paler throat. “This last time . . . she took my brother. He’s seven.” The girl turned her face away, hiding behind a spill of black hair. “She made me watch as she fed on him.”
    A first feeding always had sexual overtones. What the girl described was molestation and torture all at once. Rick yanked against his bonds, a growl coming from him, part pain, mostly anger. “Let me loose. We can take her down if we work together.”
    â€œNo. If she dies, Jason is dead. She hid him with her scions,” the girl said, “which she calls the long-chained. I don’t know where. And if she doesn’t come back, they’ll all die. If she lives, and if I don’t do what she wants, she’ll make me watch him die.”
    â€œWe can find him in time,” he snarled.
    â€œI can’t take that chance. But thank you for the anger. No one has been angry for us in . . . in forever.”
    Rick shoved down his rage. It wouldn’t help. Neither would the fight-or-flight instincts that battled through his blood. Forcibly he silenced his fury, tamping it down, sealing it off. “What does she want?” he asked when he could, his voice low and even.
    Her movements economical and fiercely determined, the girl positioned the lanterns around him, uncapped a marker, and placed it against his skin at his shoulder. “She wants you bound to her,” she whispered. “And if she can’t do it with her vampire gift, she’ll do it with magic.” She began drawing on his skin with the marker, drawing and wiping away most of the ink, leaving only a faint outline.
    â€œYou’re going to tattoo me?” he asked, incredulous, relief flooding his system. “That’s all?”
    â€œA tattoo of binding. Using her blood and animal blood in the final part of the spell. The blood will bind you to her. You’ll be a blood-servant. Of sorts.” The girl looked at him through her bangs, her eyes smoky brown. “It’s an old spell. I think she stole it from my grandmother. And I’m sorry to use it on you.” Her voice dropped lower. “So very sorry.”
    Hot sweat broke out along his skin, and his sphincters pulled in so tight that his belly ached. He swore violently as his hope evaporated.
The girl’s
a witch.
Rick raised his head and looked at the black marble beneath him. Considered the metal ring. An impressive witches’ circle, one used for a long time