Ancient Bonds Book One

By Odette C. Bell

Camille’s a secretary. She books appointments, fields calls, and deals with him. The boss from hell – or at least the city’s number one vampire clan.
Thorne Ashcroft is the country’s largest developer by day. By night, he controls the vamp council. But since his father’s murder, his control’s slipped. As his supporters are murdered, he holds onto the one thing he can still protect.
When Camille discovers her cold-hearted boss has a secret, she’ll stop at nothing to find out what it is. But this secret is steeped in lies, blood, and tradition. At its heart is her, the one thing Thorne can never lose.
Be swept up in a tale of magic, murder, and ancient traditions that won’t die, no matter how hard you try to kill them.
...
Ancient Bonds follows a determined glass witch struggling to save the city – and her vampire – from an ancient curse. If you crave your urban fantasy with charm, danger, and a dash of romance, grab Ancient Bonds Book One and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series today.
Ancient Bonds is the 6th Your True Vampire series. In a world where vampires know their true love at first sight, love brings trouble. Packed with action, wit, humor, and a dash of romance, you can read them separately, so plunge in today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jun 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215795873

Book preview

Chapter 1

Thorne Ashcroft

I could smell it from out on the street. Death. Haunting me still.

I walked up the steps and felt the chill wind on my neck.

A shiver raced down my spine. I showed no external indication of it. My father – before his grim murder – had taught me well. Shoving a hand out, I grabbed the handle, turned it, and walked into Elizabeth Croft’s once grand house. The sweeping architecture itself remained. The vaulted ceilings, the three floors, even the carved stone gargoyles intended to keep watch. It had lost the grand feeling, however, when its mistress’s throat had been brutally cut in the drawing room.

I could hear the sound of police clattering on every floor. I’d been provided with a constable as an escort. It’s— he began, face pale with nerves.

I didn’t need the timid young man to tell me where the body lay. I could smell it. Elizabeth had multiple drawing rooms. Several on the top floor and three on the ground floor.

But none of them smelled so cloyingly of death, of blood that should not have been spilled, and of a city that was constantly slipping backward no matter how hard I tried to hold onto it.

Rounding a hand into a fist, I forced it into the pocket of my long black coat. I had a reputation to keep in this town. And even if the only thing I could do was hide my anger, I would.

Once, we vampires ruled with an iron fist. In many ways we still did. But it was through our reputations that we maintained our connections with humanity and the other races. Lose that, slide back into the darkness, and the beast within might rise once more.

I paused – only for a nanosecond – just outside of the drawing-room door. Someone had opened a window. It was only hours after the deed, but whoever had done it had thrown a stink bomb to ensure no nearby vampires smelt the death sooner.

Yellow police tape fluttered in the breeze. I stared down at it and smoothly turned around the corner. And there was Elizabeth, slumped in one of her regal velvet button-backed recliners, her head tilted to the side, her neck open for all to see.

Forensic photographers took photos from every angle, their flashes like blasts of far-off lightning. Multiple detectives stood at the corner of the room, noting random details and jotting them down in their legal pads or on dictaphones.

People constantly moved in and out of the room from the two doors. They stood there, knowing what this meant, knowing that yet again they’d failed.

Everything I wanted would now fall further from my grip.

I stared at Elizabeth. I saw the signs of struggle marking her old skin, but they were minimal. She was an ancient vampire but a strong one.

Yet there were no bruises, and there was no obvious damage to the room. The attacker had crept in and slit one of the most powerful vampire’s throats in the city without her ever getting the chance to defend herself.

I stood there and closed my eyes, even though that brought more attention to my perfect sense of smell. A vampire from a prestigious family like mine had senses beyond compare.

I detected everything, from the washing powder used on the detectives’ starched white shirts to the exact scents of the stink bomb, to the smell of coagulated, old blood.

Someone cleared their throat from behind me. A memorable gruff cough, I turned to see Detective Winston.

He had an appropriately grim look on his face.

If we’d just found her sooner, maybe we would’ve finally had a chance to solve these cases. The stink bomb has done its damage, though, he growled. Even the werewolves on the Force can’t detect any leftover scents. Again, we’ve got nothing – no clue about who did this and no clue why.

I didn’t correct him on the use of the word why. That was the easiest thing to know for sure. Someone was making a play on the Council. I’d headed it up ever since my father’s brutal murder. And if you thought Elizabeth’s demise was grisly, I wouldn’t share the details of what they had done to him. I will, however, tell you this. Every violent act in this city then and since had been directed toward one thing – overthrowing the Council and instilling a new type of reign.

I’m sorry for your loss, Winston muttered. You knew her well, didn’t you? Ever since your father’s… he coughed tactfully.

Ever since my father’s murder, I said in a completely even voice like I was speaking about emotionless facts, Elizabeth has taken me under her wing. At least, she took me under her wing. When will the body be released? I moved so quickly from her murder to her burial that an ordinary man would be suspicious.

But Winston had dealt with vampires long enough to know our traditions. Once a vampire was dead, they needed to be burned within the day. Their ashes would be scattered to the four corners of whatever country they lived in. It was that or have some ambitious necromancer take their bones for their spells – and that was an ignominious way to go for a dame as old and dignified as Elizabeth.

We are well aware of your cultural deadline. We’ll have everything wrapped up by this evening.

Good. I will arrange for the body to be picked up from the morgue. I turned.

My phone rang.

I pulled it out and stared at it.

Winston was close enough that he could see.

My secretary’s name flashed on screen. And for several seconds, I did nothing. I stared at it. Stared at it as my heart sank further.

A good friend of mine – and one of my most loyal supporters on the Council – had just been murdered. But the sight of Camille Knowles’s name could still do something to me that nothing else could.

Winston was right there. So he could see.

And he could cough in that way he always did. She’s doing… well, then?

I sliced my eyes to the side and soon gauged that no one was listening to us. I still did not feel comfortable discussing this and never would. She is a proficient secretary.

That’s great, but, he cleared his throat again, his go-to move whenever anything became even slightly awkward, I guess that’s not what I’m really asking. She’s the only glass witch in the city – even if she has undeveloped powers. And she is your—

Vampires could give looks. Not looks that could kill but looks that came close. Looks that could slide over your neck just like fingers investigating it to find out where it was weakest.

I didn’t turn one of those looks on Winston – not entirely. But I did give him a warning, and he heeded it.

Never mind. Just checking up on her. We all know I’m beholden to the clans of the city. They wouldn’t want to see a rare witch like Camille being mistreated or anything.

If you are implying that I would ever hurt my secretary, I began.

Winston had clearly grown bored of this touchy subject. He also had too much to do.

Two vampire officers arrived. Dressed in clean, smart uniforms, while everyone else wore the blue of police officers, they wore black with blue accents around their collars. As soon as they saw me – though they would’ve smelt me from the street over the scent of the dissipating stink bomb – they both bowed low. As was custom, I did not even meet their gazes. I pushed a hand into my pocket. Call me if you need me, I muttered to Winston. And… don’t worry, I added, the only message I could give him without mentioning Camille’s name again.

Winston could worry about the Council. He could worry that my other supporters were next – and I worried about that every second of the day. But the one thing he did not need to worry about was Camille’s safety.

I was born with two responsibilities. One was to keep the city safe. And the other? Ah, that centered right in the heart of my bumbling secretary, Camille Knowles.

Chapter 2

Camille Knowles

Oh, I don’t know. I think I should just quit, I muttered to myself as I selected a pair of red cherry earrings and managed to hook them into my ears while pushing the phone against my shoulder.

You have heard of speakerphone, haven’t you? Daphne chuckled on the other end of the line.

I hate speakerphone. You know that.

Because you believe you’re so clumsy that you’ll accidentally use it around your boss – then he’ll overhear one of our conversations, throw you in jail, and rip your secretary license up and burn it in eternal flames?

Daphne was a writer. A particularly verbose one with a crazy imagination to boot.

I arched an eyebrow. What secretary license? Are we living in the 1940s? Wait, they didn’t even have secretary licenses then. It’s not like being a secretary is a dangerous job.

"Oh, you know what I mean. And by the way, you think so little of yourself. You’re not that clumsy," she tried. So tell me, why did she put all her emphasis on the word that? The kind of emphasis that underlined it then shot to the beginning of the word and underlined it again? You could forgive me for turning into Daphne and becoming overly verbose, but there was no hyperbole when it came to me being clumsy. There were only facts.

Did you want to hear them? Fine. Here we go. In first grade, I was so clumsy that I was given the nickname Bruise Face. Funny? Of course not. Kids in first grade don’t have developed senses of humor yet. Kids in high school, on the other hand, sure do. Cruel ones that had been used on me mercilessly every time I’d tripped and shown my knickers or spilled the contents of my lunch over the principal. My clumsiness had stayed with me my entire life. I couldn’t tell you how many things I’d tripped over, how many objects I’d dropped, and how much trouble I’d gotten myself into.

Clumsiness was just a fact of life for me.

Oh, and I had one other all-important fact.

My boss.

Your handsome vampire boss aside, Daphne swooned as if she didn’t want to end this conversation, you know why I’m calling, she had a sigh in her voice.

Not as loud as the sigh that echoed through mine. I shoved my hand forward, placed it on the chipped wood of my dressing table, and looked up into my equally chipped mirror. Everything I owned was chipped. I could afford better things. I’d just broken everything with constant accidents. I was pretty sure I’d dropped an example of almost every object on Earth.

Yeah, I muttered, of course I’ll be there at the coven meeting. Even though we all know I’m not meant to be.

She snorted. Not meant to be? You’re the city’s only glass witch. Ever since ancient times, it has been written down in the coven’s rules that every example of every kind of witch in the city must be present for meetings. Her tone changed as she said that. She wasn’t performing here. This wasn’t her writer self. This was the fact she was a representative on the coven too. She was a word witch.

When she wasn’t writing words down for others’ entertainment, she could squeeze magic out of them and tame them to her will. She was powerful. Seriously so. Every other representative on the coven could run circles around me. Me? I was a glass witch. And that was seriously rare. Some glass witches were incredibly powerful. And before you scoff at the fact that glass is fragile, take a long view of glass. It’s in everything. From fiber optics to computing to people’s spectacles to building materials. And that ubiquity would lend to a glass witch’s power. If, of course, the glass witch in question could control anything at all and didn’t constantly and clumsily slip up and make mistakes.

We coven sisters don’t judge, Camille. You know that.

They judge all the time, I said, sighing as I flopped a hand over my face.

I could hear her pausing as she internally conceded my point. Okay. We coven witches might judge and gossip a bit, but we’re always there for you in the end. You don’t have to be powerful to be on the coven. You do have to show up, though. Tonight at nine. Got it?

What if my terrible coldhearted boss asks me to work late?

He’s only done that a handful of times – usually when it’s raining. He’s honestly not that bad. He gives you time off whenever you need it—"

He’s a devil in disguise, I tried.

Nope. He’s a vampire, not a devil, and trust me, her voice went up in an appreciative coo, he sure as heck isn’t in disguise. Did you see the front of the local gossip rag this morning? That new suit of his… you get to work with him and see it every single day. How do you have anything to complain about, girl?

He’s just… I began. I had a thousand things I wanted to say. None of them fit. And in Daphne’s current mood, she wouldn’t accept any of them as valid reasons as to why my boss was the devil. No one else thought he was that bad. Everyone else appreciated that not only was he the head of one of the largest developers in the country, but he was the head of the local chapter of the Magic Council, too. Not only did he lead the vampires, but he fronted the group responsible for controlling every single magical creature in the city. Which included me.

Not that he’d ever have to control me. As if my power would ever get out of hand or I’d ever do anything dangerous with it. The most I could do was accidentally crack glass without thinking. Hardly something worthy of Council attention.

I rubbed my face. Look, I’ll be there, okay?

Try to bring a smile this time. The coven is sacred. We keep you safe, kid.

I opened my mouth. I faced my reflection in the mirror. I wanted to mutter, ‘Safe from what?’ Yeah, okay, the