Blade Bound Read online

  Praise for Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires Novels

  “I was drawn in . . . from page one and kept reading far into the night.”

  —Julie Kenner, New York Times bestselling author of the Devil May Care novels

  “Neill creates a strong-minded, sharp-witted heroine who will appeal to fans of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series and Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake.”

  —Library Journal

  “It’s witty, it’s adventurous, there’s political intrigue, murder, magic, and so much more.”

  —USA Today

  “The pages turn fast enough to satisfy vampire and romance fans alike.”

  —Booklist

  “Despite all that has [been] and continues to be thrown at her, Merit’s courage, guts, and loyalty make her one amazing heroine. Terrific!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Action, supernatural politicking, the big evil baddie with a plan, and, of course, plenty of sarcastic Merit one-liners. . . . Chicagoland Vampires is one of my favorite series.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  “Neill’s Chicago is an edgier, urban Bon Temps.”

  —Heroes and Heartbreakers

  “All I can say is wow.”

  —Bitten by Books

  “An absolute treat not to be missed.”

  —A Book Obsession

  “Delivers enough action, plot twists, and fights to satisfy the most jaded urban fantasy reader.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  OTHER NOVELS BY CHLOE NEILL

  The Chicagoland Vampires Novels

  Some Girls Bite

  Friday Night Bites

  Twice Bitten

  Hard Bitten

  Drink Deep

  Biting Cold

  House Rules

  Biting Bad

  Wild Things

  Blood Games

  Dark Debt

  Midnight Marked

  “High Stakes” novella in Kicking It

  Howling for You (A Chicagoland Vampires Novella)

  Lucky Break (A Chicagoland Vampires Novella)

  Phantom Kiss (A Chicagoland Vampires Novella)

  The Devil’s Isle Novels

  The Veil

  The Sight

  The Dark Elite Novels

  Firespell

  Hexbound

  Charmfall

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Chloe Neill

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Neill, Chloe, author.

  Title: Blade bound: a Chicagoland vampires novel/Chloe Neill.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2017. | Series: Chicagoland vampires; 13

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016046106 (print) | LCCN 2016054796 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451472342 (paperback) | ISBN 9780698180734 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Merit (Fictitious character: Neill)—Fiction. | Vampires—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION/Romance/Paranormal. | FICTION/Fantasy/Paranormal. | FICTION/Fantasy/Urban Life. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Occult fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3614.E4432 B63 2017 (print) | LCC PS3614.E4432 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046106

  First Edition: April 2017

  Cover illustration by Tony Mauro

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires Novels

  Other Novels by Chloe Neill

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter One: FIVE BY FIVE

  Chapter Two: THE GOOD WORD

  Chapter Three: FIVE SECONDS OF (SUPERNATURAL) SUMMER

  Chapter Four: COLD FEET

  Chapter Five: WHEN DOVES CRY

  Chapter Six: I WANT IT THAT WAY

  Chapter Seven: DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

  Chapter Eight: WAR OF WORLDS

  Chapter Nine: BITTERSWEETNESS

  Chapter Ten: WE’LL ALWAYS (NOT) HAVE PARIS

  Chapter Eleven: RATIONS

  Chapter Twelve: HEART OF ICE

  Chapter Thirteen: NIMBY

  Chapter Fourteen: THE SHADOWED GIRL

  Chapter Fifteen: B TO THE E

  Chapter Sixteen: WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

  Chapter Seventeen: SNOWBALL

  Chapter Eighteen: MERE MORTALS

  Chapter Nineteen: GIRLS ON DEADLINES

  Chapter Twenty: TRIPLICATE

  Chapter Twenty-one: WEIRD SCIENCE

  Chapter Twenty-two: SCALES OF JUSTICE

  Chapter Twenty-three: MIDNIGHT RUN

  Chapter Twenty-four: IMPRESSED

  Chapter Twenty-five: DRINK WITH ME

  Chapter Twenty-six: CONSEQUENTIALLY

  Chapter Twenty-seven: CRAVING

  Epilogue: THE REMAINS OF THE CAKE

  Excerpt from The Veil

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I had no idea, eleven years ago, that I’d written a novel that would be published, much less that Some Girls Bite would be the first in a thirteen-book series. I hadn’t been one to hope fiercely back then, but I’m grateful and awed by it now.

  Writing a book is both a team effort and a solitary one—and both in fits and starts. I am so grateful to everyone who has contributed to this process, especially my editor, Jessica Wade, who pulled Merit from a slush pile all those years ago, and my agent, Lucienne Diver, who took a chance on an unknown. My assistant, Krista, keeps the machine working, and my boys, Jeremy, Baxter, and Scout, provide support and comic relief. My family and friends, including my mother and Jeremy’s, distribute copies of Some Girls Bite across the country, hoping to snare readers into continuing the series. And my friends and work colleagues have been remarkably supportive, from assistance with scenes to helping me balance, as best I could, the two strange worlds in which I live. Thank you all for your support and love.

  Readers, you’ve stuck with me and Merit—with food and sarcasm, bad puns and eyebrow arching—through thirteen novels. Words are insufficient to express how grateful I am that you offer your time to us. I hope that you’ve found joy and sanctuary in reading these books just as I have in writing them.

  Most of all, I suppose thanks are due to Merit. She is me and not-me, a friend, and, as my creation, a kind of child. She was originally Kate, once in a band, and eventually dropped into a world that would have confounded the bravest of humans. Sorry about that, Mer, and good luck to you and your beloved.

  I can’t wait to
see what’s next.

  “Tis now the very witching time of night . . .”

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  CHAPTER ONE

  FIVE BY FIVE

  Late August

  Chicago, Illinois

  It was midnight in Chicago, and all was well.

  I stood in front of Cadogan House, a stately and luxurious three-story stone house on a rolling bit of lawn in Chicago’s Hyde Park. It was surrounded by an imposing fence meant to keep our enemies at bay, guarded by men and women who risked their lives to keep the House safe from attack.

  Tonight, as summer gave way to fall and a cool breeze spilled across the quiet dark, there was peace.

  Katana at my side, and having finished my patrol of the expansive grounds, I nodded at the guard at the gate and jogged up the stairs to the glowing portico. One final look, one last glance, to ensure quiet in the realm, and then I opened the door . . . and walked back into chaos.

  Cadogan House’s pretty foyer—hardwood floors, pedestal table bearing richly scented flowers, gleaming chandelier—was crowded with people and noise. A vampire manned the front desk, and three others—supplicants seeking time with Ethan Sullivan, Master of the House—waited on a bench along one side. Vampires carried boxes toward the basement stairs for the waiting truck, watched with an eagle eye by Helen, the House’s den mother.

  There was a flurry of movement and activity because the Master of Cadogan House was getting married tomorrow.

  To me.

  A vampire with dark skin and a shaved head rounded the corner into the foyer. This was Malik, Ethan’s second-in-command. He wore a slim-cut dark suit—the official Cadogan House uniform—his skin contrasting vividly with the crisp white shirt and pale green of his eyes. He tracked the room, found me, and walked my way.

  “Busy night,” he said.

  “It is.”

  “Is there a crowd outside the House?”

  I shook my head. “No, but Luc said they’re already filling the sidewalks outside the library. The CPD had to pull in extra staff to monitor.”

  Ethan and I would be married at Harold Washington Library, the city’s main branch in downtown Chicago. The city’s humans were lining up to watch.

  Malik grinned. “‘The wedding of the decade,’ I believe the Tribune said.”

  “I just want a wedding without supernatural drama,” I said. Chicago, and Cadogan House in particular, seemed to attract it.

  “Luc has that in hand,” Malik said of the captain of Cadogan’s guard corps. “And the rest of us are doing what we can.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. The entire House had rallied around us, thrilled to help celebrate the marriage of their beloved Master, the man who’d given them immortality. Cadogan’s vampires had ironed linens, polished silver, slid invitations into envelopes lined with crimson silk.

  “The effort is very much appreciated,” I said. Their help gave Ethan more time to lead the House, and me more time to ensure its safety.

  A hush fell over the room, all talk and activity coming to a stop as Cadogan House’s Master stepped into the room. Every eye in the place turned to him, including mine.

  That we’d known each other for more than a year didn’t make the sight of him any less thrilling. To the contrary—that he was mine, and I was most assuredly his, made the impact even more forceful.

  He was tall and lean, with the body of a man who’d once been a soldier. Even now, as a leader of vampires, he’d kept the same chiseled physique. His hair was golden blond and shoulder length, his eyes the green of new emeralds. His jaw was square, his nose straight, his lips usually either quirked in a wicked grin or pulled into a serious line—the expression of a Master with weight on his shoulders.

  He also wore the Cadogan uniform—a trim black suit that fitted him like the expensive, bespoke garment it probably was. He wore a white button-down beneath, the top button unclasped to show the gleaming silver teardrop of the Cadogan medal that hung at his throat. It was a mark of solidarity, of unity, among the vampires of Cadogan House. And he wore it as well as he did everything else.

  Beside him was a small woman with tan skin and dark hair. She was a vampire, at least based on the invisible buzz of magic around her. And given the tightness around her eyes, she was a vampire with worries.

  “We’ll be in touch,” Ethan promised, and she knotted her fingers together, inclined her head toward him.

  “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re very welcome,” he said, and we watched as she headed toward the door.

  But when I looked back at Ethan, his gaze was fixed on me.

  Sentinel, he said through our telepathic connection, taking in the leather and steel of my ensemble. I like the look of you.

  Good, I said. Because you’re marrying me tomorrow.

  His smile was just a little bit wicked. So I am.

  Malik and I walked toward him.

  “Mrs. Bly?” Malik asked.

  “She has a human nephew she’d like to consider joining the House. His parents are less than enthused, and she’d like us to talk to them.”

  Malik smiled. “She wants us to sell them on the House.”

  “Like we’re working on commission,” Ethan said with an answering smile, and glanced at me. “You’ll be leaving soon?”

  Tonight was my bachelorette party, organized by Lindsey, a friend in the House and a guard, and Mallory, my oldest friend and maid of honor. Malik and Luc, Lindsey’s boyfriend, were in charge of Ethan’s bachelor party. I wasn’t sure what any of them had planned, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know.

  “In an hour.”

  “Let’s go to my office,” Ethan said, nodding at Malik, and put a hand on my back, steering me through vampires and boxes and down the hallway.

  “From head of security to wedding mule,” said a vampire with a mop of wavy curls, his arms roped with the effort of carrying an enormous box down the hall.

  “I’m pretty sure mules complain less, Luc,” said the pale vampire with a swinging blond ponytail who followed him with a much lighter load—a bundle of long, spiraling branches.

  “Sticks,” Luc said, setting his box carefully on the floor and offering us a crooked grin, his face framed by tousled blond hair. “Why do you need sticks for a wedding?”

  “They aren’t sticks,” Lindsey said. “They’re willow branches, and they’re for ambience.”

  Luc shook his head ruefully, glanced at Ethan. “Your orders, Sire?”

  Ethan smiled. “Wedding decorations are outside my wheelhouse, and Merit’s, I suspect.”

  No argument there. I was technically the House’s social chair, but I fell less into the Soiree Planner category than the Crash a Party with a Sword category. I’d left most of the planning to my mother and Helen, the House’s den mother, both of whom were skilled at planning soirees. And when a Master vampire married a real estate mogul’s daughter, a soiree was unavoidable. I told them “simple and elegant” and “white peonies,” and let them have the run of things. Which meant they’d asked me at least twenty-five questions a night for the past four months.

  “Hashtag wedding,” Luc said with a smile.

  Lindsey shook her head, mouth tight. “You’re still not using that right.”

  “Hashtag oppression,” Luc said. Not for lack of trying, Luc never quite got the references right. Probably not entirely unexpected for a century-old vampire.

  “I’m sure Helen appreciates your efforts tonight,” Ethan said. “And I’m sure we will tomorrow.”

  I glanced at Luc. “You’ll keep him out of trouble tonight?”

  “Scout’s honor,” Luc said, his expression perfectly bland. Since vampires were experts at bluffing, I couldn’t tell whether that was really the truth or a cover for a night of carousing and mischief making.

  “If the CP
D calls me,” I said, looking at Luc and Ethan in turn, “there will be hell to pay.”

  “Ditto,” Lindsey said, flicking Luc’s arm.

  Ethan slid his hands into his pockets, lifted his chin in amusement. “Since Catcher will be with us, the odds of an arrest are slim.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “Because he works for the Ombudsman’s office, or because he could magic over any trouble?”

  “Both.”

  As long as it worked.

  “And what do you have planned for your soiree?” Ethan asked. “I’m guessing it won’t involve tea sipping and heavy reading.”

  I pretended to adjust invisible glasses. “Well, we will be reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica aloud and watching Neil deGrasse Tyson videos on the YouTubes. We might also make time for macramé.”

  “I’m sure,” Ethan said. “And as long as you’re back by dawn . . .”

  “I will be.”

  When his gaze settled on my lips, Lindsey cleared her throat, adjusted her willow branches to check her watch. “We’re leaving in exactly one hour,” she said, then pointed at me. “Prepare to get your groove on.”

  Luc narrowed his gaze at her. “You said there wouldn’t be strippers.”

  “There won’t be. A bachelorette can get her groove on without strippers. And, dare I say, she is entitled to do so the night before she signs up for an eternity of . . .” She glanced cautiously at Ethan. “Of what I’m sure will be faithful and obedient service.”

  Ethan made a sound of doubt. “Faithful, yes. Obedient?” He gave me a considering glance. “Rarely.”

  “I’m obedient when it counts.”

  “And that is our cue to no longer be in this room,” Luc said. “Come on, Blondie.”

  “An hour,” Lindsey repeated, stealing another look at me. They walked on, and Ethan and I continued to his office.

  When we were alone, I slipped into his arms, savoring the steady sound of his heartbeat, the crisp smell of his cologne, the warmth of his body.

  “There haven’t been many moments like this lately,” he said, strong arms around me, head atop mine. “Not with wedding plans and supplicants and Nicole.”