Blood Bonds: Forbidden, #1

By Maia Graves

Tall, dark and brooding, Blake Stafford is what forbidden fantasies are all about. When he walks into Sophia Williams' village gift shop, he brings with him drama, excitement, and blood. Drawn to Sophia's sweet innocence and lush curves, Blake soon finds himself craving something he can never have – a future. Because Blake is something that shouldn't exist even in the present. Blake is a vampire.

Cursed and tormented, he's doomed to spend eternity searching for the missing piece of a band. A piece that will set him free and finally offer him the redemption he craves. Sophia's simple, ordinary life is shattered by nights of passion in Blake's arms and days of sunshine basking in his love. She's never been happier.

And then, her best friend, Natasha, goes missing. And the fantasy she has spun around herself and Blake beginsto unravel. Natasha is not the first person to go missing from the village and she won't be the last. Unless Blake stops it. But by doing so, Blake's truth will be revealed and he will lose the only girl he's ever loved. He will finally find the redemption he's chased for hundreds of years but at what cost – his heart, his future, his love?

Can a vampire, nature's vilest demon, do the right thing? Can he give up his heart's desire for the greater good? Can he destroy the only good he's known in his tortured eternity? And will the choice even be his to make?

Blood Bonds by Maia Graves is Book 1 of the Forbidden Series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maia Graves
• Release date: Jan 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215145661

Book preview

Prologue

People around him squinted as they tried to see each other over the smoke issuing from the smoke machines even as they gyrated their bodies to the loud thumping music. The night club was packed to the rafters.

He moved to another beat, that of the many hundreds of heartbeats, pounding in tandem. So many litres of blood whooshing around him. So much sweetness to explore.

He just needed a taste.

Not yet.

He hadn’t yet found the right girl. Or guy.

He stepped away from the dance floor, ostensibly to grab a drink but actually to observe people from his vantage point near the bar. He looked around, assessing and rejecting several writhing bodies. Not this one. Not that one. No. No.

And then she stumbled towards him, this tall, leggy blonde in a light blue dress. Her hair hung down her back in waves. Her face was flushed and he could see the blood vessels pumping rhythmically beneath her skin. A long slit to one side revealed a flash of thigh and he felt the first smattering of interest.

She was still dancing as she jiggled her way to the bar and asked for a drink.

‘Let me get that for you,’ he said, and nodded to the bartender who shrugged as he mixed her drink.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at him just then. She did a double take and then looked away, as though to collect herself.

He knew the effect he had on women and he smiled, just a little.

‘My pleasure,’ he said in a low voice as he settled on the bar stool and widened his legs.

Her gaze lowered to his crotch for the briefest of seconds before looking up at his face. She was probably wondering how on earth had she got so lucky.

She stopped dancing but she continued to move slightly with the beats of the music and she took the drink from the bartender and sipped it, eyeing him. Her breasts rose and fell and he wondered what her skin tasted like.

Maybe just a nip here. A small, teensy weensy taste wont have him falling off the wagon, surely. She drew closer to him as he stared at her, as though he were tugging at her physically, through an invisible thread. In a few seconds, she stood between his legs, even as she sipped on her drink.

‘Who are you? I’ve never seen you here before,’ she said as she finished her drink and kept the glass on the bar behind him. She had to lean close to him to do that and he got a whiff of her smell. Spicy, musky, with just a tinge of sweat and excitement.

He didn’t reply but he stared back at her intently and she moved closer to him, as though she couldn’t control herself.

‘Wow. You’re sexy,’ she said. Her face flushed as though she was shocked at how forward she was being.

He smiled slowly, and trailed his finger over her cheek.

She hissed out a breath and leaned forward to kiss him. He clutched the back of her head and kissed her back like his mouth was mating with hers. She pulled herself away, and touched her swollen lips with her fingers and looked at him in awe.

‘Who are you?’ she asked him, touching his chest with the pads of her fingers. She pressed his skin, and then went on to explore his biceps and then squeezed and let out an involuntary moan.

‘I’m your dream come true, baby,’ he said and she paused. He knew it. He should have kept his mouth shut. It was the noughties after all. Women didn’t like to be told cheesy things. Dammit. He just couldn’t keep track of the decades sometimes and he still thought they were in the eighties.

But he was too handsome and his tongue was far too talented for her to let that get in the way. She moved closer until he could sense the heat come off her body. He decided to let her feel in control, so when she hovered near his mouth, he didn’t blink.

‘Maybe we should get out of here and see what you can do,’ she whispered into his mouth.

Yessss.

He straightened up on the bar stool and that brought their lips together again. He kissed her leisurely, with just a hint of what was to come, just as he grabbed the back of her neck roughly. Her eyes were wide and she licked her lips.

‘Let’s go,’ he said as he slipped down from the bar stool and threw a couple of notes on the bar.

‘What’s this place?’ she asked as they walked into the house where he was currently staying. The trip over to here from the nightclub had been agonising, especially because he’d wanted to taste her so badly. She wanted him too and her hands kept hovering over to his crotch, where she fondled him and he kept growing harder.

‘Stop talking,’ he growled as he kissed her, and this time, he showed her who was the boss. A few minutes later, her dress was around her, in tatters, and she looked at it dazed.

‘You tore my dress?’ she said in wonder. Before it could change into accusation, he dipped his head and sucked her tits.

‘That’s...’

She could barely talk as he arranged her on the sofa and made his way down her body. It had been so long. So long, he thought as he reached below and pushed his head between her legs and gave a long lick. She shuddered. He wanted to taste her but it wouldn’t be fun right now. She wouldn’t taste right, just yet.

She looked up at him a while later, eyes limpid. ‘I’ve never come so many times before,’ she told him, in a slurred voice.

He flashed his teeth at her and smiled. ‘There’s more to come, baby,’ he said as he undressed. She looked at his length apprehensively and reached out for it tentatively. He batted her hand away and shook his head. Then he flipped her around on the sofa and pushed into her from behind in one thrust. She clawed at the sofa and moaned.

‘More,’ she whispered.

He pulled her hair to one side and exposed the lovely smooth neck. He leaned up to her and blew on it and she squirmed. He wanted her blood to pound loudly. It tasted all the more delicious then.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked her as he pounded into her relentlessly.

‘Sherry,’ she gasped out.

‘Well, Sherry, you are a delicious little thing,’ he muttered as bent down and licked a long line over her spine. She squirmed under his tongue. He tasted sweat. Now, he wanted to taste fear. As he reached up towards her neck, his fangs emerged. He sank them into her soft, buttery skin. Her blood was warm as it gushed inside his mouth.

‘What’s that?’ she asked on a gasp, her breath hitching. She turned her head a fraction and her eyes widened when she saw his transformation. Immediately the taste of her blood changed. It almost soured at first and then bloomed into something sweet.

He hummed as he sucked at her lifeblood.

‘Delicious,’ he repeated as he pushed himself deeper into her.

Chapter 1

‘I don’t think handmade soaps are ever going to be a thing.’

‘You never know. You could be eating your words one day,’ Sophia remarked as she taped the edges of the gift wrapping paper together in a neat line.

Tasha rolled her eyes and expelled a long-suffering sigh. ‘Which might be the only thing I’ll get to eat if you’re going to take forever to gift wrap one damned parcel.’

Sophia shushed her. ‘Don’t disturb my concentration. It has to be perfect,’ she said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Tasha said as she walked over to the glass paned window and looked outside. ‘It’s such lovely weather today and here we are. Stuck inside.’

Sophia ignored her friend’s loud sighs and focused everything on the job. She lifted her head when she finished and smiled triumphantly.

‘Here you go,’ she said as she handed the neat square box to Tasha. ‘All done.’

‘Thanks love, but all this effort is going to be wasted on her,’ Tasha said with another big sigh.

Sophia rounded the table and walked up to her. ‘You keep saying that Tee, but you know you’d do anything to keep your Nana happy, hmm?’

‘Whatever. It’s not like the old bird’s going to leave me anything when she pops off.’ Tasha placed the gift box carefully at the bottom of her handbag and pulled out her purse.

‘No. This one’s on me,’ Sophia said.

‘No way. You’re letting me pay for this box of scented soaps and a bit extra for all that packaging. You can’t afford to give away things from your shop for free Soph!’

‘I’ll manage,’ Sophia said lightly. But her heart felt heavy. Still, she put on a bright smile for her friend who nevertheless dropped some notes on the counter and refused to take them back.

‘I’ll see you this evening at the pub then?’ Tasha asked as she walked out to the door.

‘Yep. As always,’ Sophia said. That was what they’d been doing every single day for the past few years. Sophia was bored to death of this routine and wished that something would happen to change things around. But their little village of Hutton Cranswick remained the same. For decades. Centuries, even, Sophia thought gloomily.

Was her life going to stay this way? Boring and steady with not a smidgen of excitement? Was she ever going to make her way out of the village? But even if she did, what would she do in the big, bad world out there? She was 24 years old, not a little kid, but sometimes she felt like one.

The small two-roomed cottage she called home was lonely and she felt sad on most nights. She wished she could have company but the options in the village were limited. It was the same old lads, over and over again.

She’d grown up with Joe and Miller who had been pimply-faced and snot-nosed respectively. It did little to inspire romantic thoughts when you could recall exactly how they’d looked as wailing little brats in school.

With Tasha gone, she settled herself behind the counter and picked up the book she was reading.  Her sister had loved reading these romances. She’d left a whole bunch of them at home when she’d gone to the city. Sometimes Sophia would pick them up and lose herself in them, forgetting that she thought they were silly and useless.

When the bell to her little shop tinkled as someone opened the door, she didn’t look up. It had to be Tasha, she thought, who’d probably forgotten her umbrella or some such.

‘What is it this time?’ she asked. ‘Your keys?’

‘Excuse me?’

A deep, cultured voice spoke and Sophia looked up, startled. She dropped the book she was reading as she stared into a pair of blue eyes. The man to whom the eyes belonged wasn’t just handsome. He was beautiful, she thought, her eyes growing wide as her breathing quickened.

‘We were just passing by and...’ he paused as someone else followed him. Of course. A man as beautiful as this had obviously been snapped up, she thought, her stomach sinking even as she put on her best and brightest smile. God, she hoped she didn’t look like a lunatic as she smiled at the person who joined the man.

It was a small person. Well, smallish. The girl looked no more than fifteen. She was extraordinarily pretty, had raven black hair and creamy skin. She was wearing a navy dress that fit her so snugly, that Sophia was tempted to ask her how or where she’d got such a beautiful fit. But the girl didn’t seem the sort to share such confidences. There was a look of utter disdain on her face. Her attention once again swung to the man, the owner of the blue eyes and her heartbeat quickened.

‘We were actually on our way to our house and Alyssa here wanted to stop and take a look,’ the man said.

‘Of course. Please look around,’ Sophia said, smiling widely. The one day that the world’s most beautiful man walked into a shop and she was in jeans, she thought dismayed. He didn’t smile back at her and turned to see Alyssa take a walk around the modest shop.

Sophia was proud of her little store. It was a novelty shop and even though most of the customers were people from the village, she was the go-to person if anyone ever wanted to buy a nice gift, something unusual, something pretty.

But Alyssa walked around with a bored look on her face as she picked up the items and put them back. Be careful with that! Sophia wanted to call out as Alyssa tipped over a papier-mâché bird and then set it right again.

Her gaze came back to the man and since he wasn’t looking at her, she observed him silently. He was tall, had broad shoulders and was wearing a dark overcoat. He had a long aquiline nose, high cheekbones and a sensual mouth that quickened her pulse. His hair was slightly long at the back and it was dark, like the girl’s. She wondered if they were related. She looked too young to be his wife or girlfriend. Quickly, her eye went to his hands to check for a ring and she saw that he wasn’t wearing one. He looked around 28 but she could be wrong and he may have been older.

Alyssa had taken a look and then she came back the counter, empty-handed and bored.

‘Nah. Nothing here.’

The man sighed. ‘Fine. Sorry for wasting your time,’ he told Sophia almost a little curtly as the two of them walked away.

They barely paid any attention to her as they opened the door and walked out. Sophia stared at their backs, wondering who they were and what they were doing here. She’d never seen them before and theirs was a small village with less than 2000 people. She knew almost everyone.

As the man left, he turned slightly and he caught Sophia staring at them. He stared back at her, his blue eyes connecting with hers and an intense flood of longing caught her unawares. The man too looked startled but he left the handle of the door and stepped outside, his hand on Alyssa’s back.

Sophia sat back behind the counter on shaky legs. They got their share of tourists at Hutton Cranswick, especially people who came to see the chalk hills nearby but she’d never come across anyone as good-looking or enigmatic as these two.

She didn’t even know his name. And he wouldn’t remember her obviously, she thought. Why would he even remember her? She wasn’t memorable or remarkable. But as she opened the book again and her eyes glazed over the pages, she breathed out a sigh.

She wanted to be memorable.

She wanted to be remarkable.

And most of all, she wanted him to come back inside the shop and tell her that he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

‘Like that’s going to happen,’ she muttered to herself as tried to read the words on the pages once more.

Chapter 2

‘Another dead end,’ Alyssa sighed as she got into Blake’s car and he drove away from there. He was annoyed with himself for having taken the detour into the village but he’d done it anyway because he’d wanted Alyssa to shut up.

‘Here’s where I try very hard not to say ‘I told you so’,’ he snarled at her softly.

She glanced at him in surprise. ‘What’s got your knickers in a twist?’

‘You, on this perennial treasure hunt. Can’t you let me live in peace?’ he asked as he stepped down on the accelerator. The BMW purred and didn’t hiccup even once as it sped along the bumpy road.

‘Okay, okay, big brother,’ she sighed. ‘You know I can’t resist looking.’

He didn’t even roll his eyes as he turned into a rugged road that led to the outskirts of the village. They were surrounded by gorgeous green fields, lush with blossoms and the air was redolent with the scent of honeysuckle. He sniffed in the fragrance and the richness permeated his senses, reminding him of the pair of golden eyes that belonged to the girl in the shop they’d just left. For some reason, every detail about her was imprinted on his mind.

He had a photographic memory but he’d rarely used it like this. Certainly never to recall those long, curled eye-lashes, the creamy skin, the magnificent red hair, those lush lips and the confused expression on her face...like she’d never expected to see him in her shop. And she wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for pesky Alyssa.

‘And I’m not your big brother,’ he muttered as he brought the car to park outside the manor that they’d recently moved into.

‘It’s easier to follow along when I believe it myself,’ Alyssa said, blowing out a breath as she stepped out of the car. They both walked inside the house in silence and settled into the living room as shadows lengthened outside and the air turned cool. Alyssa was uncharacteristically silent but Blake knew it had nothing to do with him, so he didn’t probe.

‘How long do you think we’ll stay here this time?’ she asked as she settled into the sofa.

‘Who knows?’ Blake murmured. He got up and stretched.

‘The last time we settled in this part of the country, it was a different century, Blake. Things are different now,’ she said softly as she got up and walked up to him and put her hand on his elbow. He shook her off. Even though he’d said that he wasn’t her older brother, he’d also never felt romantically inclined towards her. Ever. Although that had never really deterred Alyssa. She didn’t mind trying every few years.

They’d been bound for life by Lorelei and the two of them had stumbled through the centuries together, searching for that one elusive piece that would complete the band and set them