Blood Entangled
Authors: Amber Belldene
Cover
Title Page
Blood Entangled
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Amber Belldene
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Omnific Publishing
Dallas
Copyright Information
Blood Entangled, Copyright © 2013 by Amber Belldene
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.
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Omnific Publishing
10000 North Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75231
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First Omnific eBook edition, July 2013
First Omnific trade paperback edition, July 2013
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
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Belldene, Amber.
Blood Entangled / Amber Belldene – 1st ed
ISBN: 978-1-623420-44-4
1. Romance—Fiction. 2. Paranormal—Romance. 3. Vampires—Romance. 4. Vampire Hunter—Romance
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Cover Design by Micha Stone and Amy Brokaw
Interior Book Design by Coreen Montagna
Dedication
To my children:
My longing for you inspired this book,
and being your mother has taught me more
about what it means to love
than I ever thought possible..
Chapter 1
S
UNLIGHT
F
ILTERED
T
HROUGH
the coastal fog, falling soft and gray onto Lena’s page. She closed her book and curled up on the sofa, which sat beneath a picture window facing the churning ocean. With her eyes shut, she pondered the poem, mentally rotating the possible meanings of phrases until they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. She hadn’t even known she liked poetry. Browsing through Kos’s library in luxurious solitude, she was in heaven, the couch her fluffy cloud. She never had to go back to the Kaštel Estate, never again had to face Andre’s rejection.
He’d never really wanted her, and she’d been a fool to hang on to hope for so long. Shame burned across her cheeks, but it didn’t matter. In fact, maybe she should thank him for kicking her out. It was the wake-up call she’d needed. She would find a new vampire to work for, begin a new life, and finally find what she was looking for.
In the meantime, she would enjoy Kos’s house, and his books. She snuggled deeper into the sofa, sighing with contentment.
A knock on the door roused her.
Kos would have called before returning, and his house was hidden far from the highway. She shivered, and fear rolled over her in a slow wave. No one lived nearby, and the once-luxurious solitude suddenly turned creepy.
She peered through the eyehole. A man in a Highway Patrol uniform stood at the door.
He pounded on the door again. “Hello! I can hear someone in there. I’m Officer Nash from the Highway Patrol. Please open the door.”
No patrol car was visible in the drive, and sunglasses hid his eyes. Would they be the golden color of a Hunter’s?
Maybe she was over-reacting, Hunters were only human, after all. But they were ruthless when it came to women like her. Blood servants were the Hunters’ favorite playthings. She hurried to the phone and dialed 9-1-1 anyway. It was better to play it safe. The loud drum of her heart made it difficult to hear the ringing on the line. She peered out the windows for signs of danger. The deck off the back of the house overhung the cliff—no one could reach it from the yard. But outside the kitchen window she spied another man in a police uniform lurking in the tall shrubs.
“9-1-1,” droned the dispatcher, her voice official and nasal. “What’s your emergency?”
“Two men in Highway Patrol uniforms are at my house, but they look suspicious and I don’t see their patrol car. Can you please confirm their identity with their dispatcher before I open the door?”
“That’s unusual. Let me check.”
The man on the side of the house poured clear liquid from a red plastic gas can. At the front door, the other banged louder, demanding to be let in.
Her heart boomed in her chest, as much with anger at the dispatcher as with fear. “One of them is pouring gasoline around the house. He is not an officer. Send the real police.
Now
.”
The dispatcher paused for only a second. “Ma’am, what is your address?”
“I’m on Highway One, five miles north of Jenner. West side of the highway.” Frantically, she searched Kos’s desk for a piece of mail with an actual street number on it, and when she found it, she read it to the woman on the line.
“There’s a sheriff’s deputy about ten minutes away, ma’am. Stay on the line.”
“Okay.” Lena nodded, even though the dispatcher couldn’t see her.
The Hunter shouted at the closed door. “Come out, lady. Or we’ll burn the house down with you inside.”
Anger overrode her instructions to stay on the line. She slammed the phone down and jogged to the door. “Hey, asshole, the real cops are coming. They won’t take kindly to you borrowing their uniforms!” Lena hurried back to the desk and picked up the phone. “I’m back.”
The dispatcher sighed with relief. “Have they ignited the gasoline, ma’am?”
“It’s not catching. The wind keeps blowing their lighters out.” Lena could barely breathe; she stood frozen at the window.
“Good.” The dispatcher’s word rang hollow and hopeless.
Time slowed down as the man’s lighter blew out over and over again. If he only bent down, he could catch the gasoline covered grasses instantly. But, to her astonishment, he didn’t. She waited, chewing her cheek until she tasted blood. Finally, the other Hunter—surely that was who they were—shouted for him to give up, and they fled into the trees.
Sirens heralded the arrival of the deputy. Lena opened the door to him before collapsing onto the couch.
She recounted what had happened, and the young officer leaned his hip against the dining room table, scratching his chin. “Ma’am, the sheriff’s department isn’t equipped to patrol out here regularly. We just happened to be nearby. You shouldn’t stay here alone. Is there somewhere we can take you?”
Emptiness carved out a pit in her stomach. She had nowhere to go, shy of the two-hour drive to San Francisco. She could hardly impose on the deputy for such a long trip. And, since moving to Andre’s, she’d grown apart from her friends in the city. There was only one person to call—the one who had already shown her great kindness by rescuing her from Andre and sheltering her in his home—Kos.
“Let me call a friend. He’ll come pick me up.”
Kos pulled his car into the driveway of his house too fast, and the tires kicked up gravel into his wheel wells. A Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department patrol car was parked near the door. He leaned close to the car and sniffed—real cops, not Hunters. Lucky for them. But the elemental scent of Hunter lingered. They hadn’t been gone long.
White against the darkening sky, the fog hovered close to the roof of the house, muffling the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs below. The scene was so peaceful it was hard to believe they’d tried to burn his house down with Lena inside only an hour ago.
When one of the uniformed officers opened the door, Kos plastered on his I-know-how-to-deal-with-cops smile.
“You her friend?” The cop’s efficient gaze traveled over Kos.
“Yes, officer.” Kos extended his hand. “Kosjenic Maras. This is my house. Thank you for keeping her safe. Is she all right?”
The deputy had a good, firm handshake. “She’s fine. The dispatcher thought the call was a crank, or a nut job, when Lena…” He flipped open a notepad. “Ms. Isaakson said two men in Highway Patrol Uniforms were trying to light the house on fire. But Lena insisted rather forcefully, and the dispatcher sent us over.”
Kos spun to survey the tree line. “Any sign of the men?”
“Afraid not.” The young man tapped his notepad on his thigh. “They pulled away in front of us, and we stopped to check on the victim. No other patrol units out here, so they got away.”
Probably for the best. Kos wouldn’t have been able to question a Hunter in a human jail anyway. Taking two off the streets didn’t matter. There were always hundreds more of them than you ever saw, like cockroaches.
Her safety had come first to the patrolman, and that warmed Kos up to the young man. Still, he stood in the doorway, keeping Kos from Lena. “Is there anything else we can do for you, officer?”
The boyish cop scratched his high-and-tight brown hair. He surveyed the yard and then frowned at the doorframe he was blocking. His frown turned sheepish, and he stepped out of the way to let Kos in. “Sorry, sir. No, sir.”