Blood That Binds: A Vampire Romance (Blood Legends Duet)

  Blood That Binds

  Blood Legends Duet

  Melissa Winters

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Copyright © 2020 by Melissa Winters

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by Per Se Editing

  Cover Photo by Cathleen Tarawhiti—Deviant Art

  Cover design by Tracey Suppo

  To TD

  For loving all the parts of me that others haven’t. For supporting me even when my ideas seemed crazy. You’re my rock. My soulmate. My best friend. Always.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Introduction

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  My nerves are shot.

  I don’t want to be here, but it isn’t my choice; it never has been. I’ve been forced to see a professional my entire life. This time it’s to deal with my grief. At least that’s the bullshit my parents fed me. It was a decision they came to together, which is a miracle these days. Communicating is not their forte, and being sober is an even greater challenge for them. Yet somehow, they managed to speak to each other long enough to sentence me to this purgatory. My parents mean well, but at this point the only one that can help is my sister. I need her.

  She’s gone.

  Eyes fixed forward, I watch as the woman’s red lips move, but I don’t hear the sounds or words she speaks. The incessant tapping of the pen she holds has my complete focus, and it promises to sever the thin string holding my sanity together.

  I’m not ready to talk about what happened, but she is hell-bent on forcing me to relive every brutal minute of it. It’s a memory I’m trying hard to repress. It’s too painful.

  My gaze finds the silver wall clock positioned just above Dr. Tilney’s head. Ten more minutes.

  “Marina, did you hear me?” Dr. Tilney manages to make her question sound like a scold.

  I groan in response, sitting further back in my seat. For as sterile as this office is, the chairs are oversized and comfortable. So much so, I just want to close my eyes and sleep through the rest of this hellish session.

  “Marina, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

  Lowering my eyes to meet hers, I muster the strength to speak.

  “I don’t want your help. I want to sleep.”

  Dr. Tilney’s eyes narrow slightly, and that damn pen finally stops, suspended in air as the good doctor ferrets out the meaning in my words. She probably thinks my words mean something more. It’s likely she believes me to be suicidal like Maggie, my sister. I’m not; I’m just tired.

  “Are you sleeping well?” She switches her tactic.

  I know this game. I’ve been playing it all my life. From as early as I can remember, I’ve been seeing someone from Dr. Tilney’s practice. I rarely make it a year before I’m back through these doors, subjected to the same old mind games. As much as my parents would like to forget, I suffer from the same plight as Maggie. The only difference was that I learned to deny I saw the same monsters, while she refused, desperate for help.

  “Marina,” she repeats.

  I shrug. “Define sleep.” Her face remains stoic, so I relent. “No, I’m not sleeping. I’ve been having nightmares,” I cringe at my slip.

  The worst thing I could’ve done is admit that. Telling a shrink you’re having nightmares is the worst idea when you’re me. I’ve had to get really good at formulating my stories on the fly. Dr. Tilney has radar for bullshit, so perfecting lies has become my sport of choice throughout life. But this time, I don’t have to lie. I haven’t been having the same endless dream from my childhood. It’s different this time.

  It’s so much worse.

  “Again?” She doesn’t miss a damn beat.

  They never really stopped.

  I’d never tell her that for so many reasons. The most important of them all is that it would prove I inadvertently killed my sister. Lies of omission are still lies, and mine caused Maggie to jump.

  “Tell me about them,” she demands, and I relent.

  “They aren’t the same as before.” I take a deep breath and chew on my lower lip. I need to feel pain. Pain is better than sadness.

  “Go on,” she prods.

  “They aren’t . . . monsters,” I blow out a puff of air. “This time they’re about Maggie.” I close my eyes and like clockwork, the dream resurfaces. Every last detail spilling out behind my lids. I can’t escape it, so I decide to play nice and relay exactly what I see to Dr. Tilney. “She’s lying on a gurney. They begin to zip the bag up, but her eyes open,” I take a deep breath. “She looks right at me and whispers, ‘I love you.’”

  Dr. Tilney purses her lips, which could quite possibly be more annoying than the tapping.

  “The same words she spoke before she jumped from the cliff.”

  I flinch at the verbal smack in the face. All memories of that day are burned into my mind, playing on a constant loop. It’s another reason I’m not sleeping. If it’s not the monsters or my sister laid out in a morgue replaying on a loop, it’s that horrible day. Every night, I see her. Yellow sundress. Long blond hair blowing in the breeze. Her head turning to look at me. The words whispered on the wind . . . I love you. The sad smile right before she turns away from me and jumps.

  “I don’t want to talk about that.” My voice is edgy, and Dr. Tilney knows she’s hit a sore spot.

  “You witnessed a traumatic event, Marina. It’s normal to have nightmares.”

  I turn my head away from her, willing away the tears that threaten to fall. She’s leading me to places and memories I don’t want to talk about. Isn’t it enough that I can’t forget them? That I’m forced to replay them nightly?

  “All right, we can talk about something else.” She clicks her tongue, unhappy to relent. “Start with the conversation you and Maggie had four days before her death.”

  I stiffen at her words; every sentence she speaks only drives the knife in deeper. Heat spreads through my body as my blood boils. The fact that everyone just assumes that Maggie is dead makes me livid. Without a body, I’ll never believe she’s dead. To me she’s just . . . gone.

  “Marina, are you all right?”

  “Her body was never found. She could still be alive,” I snap. “She’s not dead.”
<
br />   She taps that damn pen to her mouth.

  “What makes you think that?” Her eyes narrow. “The experts all agree she couldn’t have survived.”

  “She’s my twin. I would know. I’d feel it.” I run my hands through my hair, tired of this conversation. I’ve had it a million times with a million different people over the past four months. Every one of them says the same damn thing. She didn’t survive that fall.

  “In your dream, you see Maggie on a gurney. Perhaps, subconsciously, your mind is trying to help you come to terms with the events of that day.”

  “No. It’s just a dream. I can’t control what I dream.”

  She doesn’t respond to my comments, but forges ahead, annoying as ever.

  “Tell me about the conversation you two had four days before,” she presses.

  “Ugh,” I groan, annoyed at her probing. “She was scared and the medicine you provided wasn’t working.” My voice rises as I dig my fingernails into the skin of my legs, desperate for more pain. I need to stifle the sadness creeping toward the surface.

  “Why do you say that the medicine wasn’t working?” Her brow tilts upward.

  “It made her tired and intensified the things she was seeing.”

  “Tell me about the things she was seeing.”

  I sigh, frustrated.

  “This is my session. Not Maggie’s.” My words are biting, but she doesn’t react. She doesn’t say a word.

  Dr. Tilney is a dog with a bone. She won’t stop until our time is up or I walk out, which I’m currently tempted to do, but in the end, I won’t. I’ll give in and tell her what she wants to hear. It’s the only way I’ll ever be free of her. I need to play nice and appear rehabilitated. Like before.

  “She was seeing monsters.”

  She knows full well what Maggie was seeing. It hasn’t changed since we were three. She just wants to hear me say it. She believes that facing your problems head on is the first step in rehabilitation. I think she’s a sadist.

  “Just in her dreams?”

  I shake my head back and forth.

  “Everywhere.”

  Dr. Tilney places her pen back on her desk.

  “The same monsters you used to see?”

  Inhale. Exhale. Lie.

  “My monsters weren’t real. They were a figment of a childhood imagination created by the shadows in the dark.” I grit my teeth at the lies I’m forced to tell. The rehearsed words I’ve repeated constantly since I was ten years old.

  I know my monsters were very real. They hid in plain sight, disguised as people, but I saw their darkness. The way their eyes glowed a blazing red, burned holes into my being every time I saw one. They bared their elongated canines as if to prove they were to be feared. It wasn’t necessary; my body shook when it sensed their presence. I didn’t have to see them to be scared.

  “Your sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia with paranoia. The medication was to help her.”

  “Should you be sharing your patient’s diagnosis with other patients, doctor?”

  “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. I’m simply reminding you. Based on your years of joint therapy, I’m not outside of my rights to discuss Maggie’s diagnosis.”

  I bite my lip, trying desperately not to say the things on my tongue. I want to tell Dr. Tilney that I never really stopped seeing the creatures. I only said I did so I wouldn’t end up in a straitjacket. I want to tell her how much I hate her smug face and condescending attitude, but I can’t. Ever.

  “She wasn’t crazy, and the meds didn’t help,” I say, defeated.

  “I don’t use the word crazy. If she felt the medication she was prescribed was making things worse, she should’ve called me. There are always situations in which medication can cause worsening symptoms.”

  She didn’t call because she would’ve been institutionalized. Both Maggie and I were threatened with that on numerous occasions by our parents. While I heeded the warnings and hid my paranoia, Maggie didn’t. She couldn’t, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they made good on those threats.

  “Marina, your sister was sick.”

  My shoulders sag at her words. If she was sick, so am I.

  “You’re angry and you have plenty of reason to be. You were close to Maggie, and her decision hurt you.”

  “You don’t know anything about her.” My teeth grind in anger.

  All her questions and prying over the years have piled up, making it very difficult not to break her in half. I’ll never believe that Maggie chose to end her life and leave me. Something else had to have happened. Someone caused her to jump and I’ve made it my life’s mission to discover who it was.

  She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms, clucking her tongue a few times before speaking. “I’m sorry, Marina.” For the first time today, there is a break in Dr. Tilney’s armor. “I cared about Maggie too. She’d been my patient for years, and her death weighs heavily on me as well.”

  There is sadness in her eyes, and it forces me to admit that maybe I’m being unjustly hard on her. Her job is to help, and medicine is all she knows. For years I’ve been combative, and perhaps she’s as tired of these sessions as I am. Then again, every time I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt, she’s proven me wrong. She’s good at playing games, and I’ve always struggled with getting caught up in them. I have to do better. Maggie didn’t, and it cost her greatly in the end.

  The world isn’t privy to the things that Maggie and I know. There is a whole other world out there. One where the shadows in the night are not just tricks of the mind, but actual monsters. They give it fancy terms like schizophrenia, but we’re not crazy. Everyone else is. It’s hard to face reality when it includes the stuff of nightmares.

  I sigh, lowering my eyes in ignominy.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Inhale. Exhale. “It was my fault.”

  Because I lied about seeing the monsters too.

  “I could’ve stopped her.” The words escape without permission.

  “Did you know she was considering suicide?”

  My body jerks back at the question. It’s ludicrous. I loved my sister and I would’ve done anything to stop her, had I thought she was contemplating that.

  “No. Of course not.” I shake my head vehemently.

  “Then how could it be your fault?”

  I didn’t know, but I should’ve. She was my best friend, my sister. The signs were all there, yet I did nothing.

  “It just is.”

  “It isn’t. She didn’t ask for your help. You couldn’t help her, Marina,” Dr. Tilney states.

  She did, though. She begged me to admit to our parents that the monsters were real. I didn’t. I kept quiet.

  “She told me she was scared. I should’ve done something.”

  Her eyes soften, and she changes tactics once again.

  “What happened earlier that day?” she asks softly.

  I reflect back on that day, even though I don’t need to. It’s all there, clear as day.

  “Maggie said they were coming for her, but she had a plan.”

  “Who was coming for her?”

  “I don’t know. She was hysterical. All she said was that she had to leave before she led them to us.”

  “Led them to your family?”

  “Yeah, I assumed.”

  The only people that Maggie cared about was our family. She wouldn’t have left unless she thought we were in danger, and based on her paranoia that day, she did. Something had happened, but she was too distressed to tell me. I had tried to uncover what had her upset, but she was insistent that she was running out of time. I should’ve forced her to talk to me; instead, I let her go.

  “You followed her, but you didn’t tell your parents?”

  I narrow my eyes. She knows I didn’t tell them. We’ve been over this. They would’ve driven her to the nearest hospital and dumped her there. Our mother was over the delusions—as she called them—and
that would’ve been the final straw.

  “My parents have their own issues.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  I sigh in agitation. My parents are the last people I want to talk about. They abandoned me when I needed them the most, and I’ll forever harbor resentment for that.

  “Marina?”

  “My dad abuses pain medications, and my mother pretends it’s not happening,” I say flatly. “As long as her wine glass is never empty, she’s fine.”

  She compresses her lips and I wonder what she’s thinking in this moment. Has she realized that my family is gone and I’m alone?

  “Have you spoken to them about how this makes you feel?”

  I huff, exasperated at her lack of understanding about how pointless that would be.

  “No. It wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Why do you feel that way?”

  Has she forgotten everything we’ve told her over the years? My mom has never been okay. Since the day we were born, she’s been absent. Grief will do that to a person. Maggie and I survived, while our triplet, Molly, was stillborn. We’ve never had our mother. A piece of her died the day she lost Molly, despite the fact that she had two other daughters that needed her.

  After years of trying to pull my mom out of her misery, my dad gave up. Nothing worked, and their marriage was never the same. Instead of family outings, it was just our dad, Maggie, and me. He’d take us everywhere. For a moment, I allow my mind to drift to better days. Our favorite pastime with him was fishing. We loved those times with him, and some of my greatest memories are of the three of us down by the river. I smile absently at the memories. They seem like a lifetime ago, because those days didn’t last long.