Patricia Briggs – Blood Bound

The second book in the Mercedes Thompson series, published January 30, 2007.
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: strong, I love it.



Under the rule of science, there are no witch burnings allowed, no water trials or public lynchings. In return, the average law-abiding, solid citizen has little to worry about from the things that go bump in the night. Sometimes I wish I was an average citizen …
Mechanic Mercy Thompson has friends in low places – and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind.
But this new vampire is hardly ordinary – and neither is the demon inside of him…


I have to admit, I have forgotten a lot about this book, but not the fact that I love this series. In this second book, Mercy learns more about vampires, and how to deal with them, and how to kill them.
Mercy owes Stefan a favor, and he asks her to accompany him to interrogate a strange vampire who has not paid his due to the local vampire mistress. This man has been in town before, and Stefan thinks he put one of his friends in big trouble. He wants to find out the truth, and Mercy as a walker should be immune to most of his vampire tricks. Stefan does not expect her to be in danger, or he would never have asked her to come in her guise as coyote.

But Stefan has underestimated the stranger, and he should have warned Mercy as soon as he smelled the demon inside the hotel, and all the dead people. He though the could not be controlled as he is an old and powerful vampire himself, and not a fledgling like his friend Daniel, but as soon as the vampire invited them in, Stefan was lost. Mercy can’t escape the leather harness he put on her, so she can’t shift back and safe them, and the woman this strange vampire is slowly killing. When she wakes up again, she is back in her trailer, sore all over, and Stefan and Samuel are arguing about her. She has no memory how she got out of the hotel and back home, but apparently, the vampire let them go. Stefan is riddled with guild, as he clearly remembers killing the cleaning lady himself, and revelling in his bloodlust, but Mercy tells him what really happened in that room.

Now she has to help him convince his Mistress, Marsilia, that he is innocent of killing so many people in bloodlust, even though his own memories tell him so. And for that, Mercy will have to visit the vampire seethe again. Samuel should not come this time, as the Mistress has taken a liking to him, and she should not be tempted again. Warren and Ben will go with Mercy as her bodyguards; although two werewolves against a house full of old vampires are not match either.

Here Mercy meets an old friend of Stefan, Andre, who has turned Daniel while he belonged to Stefan. Mercy has her doubts about the friendship between them, but Stefan trusts him. But when Stefan and the wolves go hunt this sorcerer turned vampire together, to prevent more public slaughter of innocent humans, things go wrong quickly.
The demon incites a lot of violence in all the people around him, and the police are swamped with crime and killings. Tony asks Mercy for her help; as they start believe the Fae are behind this. And so Mercy ends up being some kind of liaison between the police and the werewolves and Fae. Or course there is not much she is allowed to tell the police, but she is determined the help them as much as she can. When the general public becomes afraid of the Fae that would be bad news for all the supernaturals out there. There are enough hate crimes already.

When Warren is found deadly injured in a dumpster, and Ben and Stefan are missing, it is up to Mercy to find them before the sorcerer kills them all. Especially when Samuel and Adam go missing as well. Now suddenly she is the highest ranking member of the pack, because Adam pronounced her his mate. Not that she really is, or wants to be, but it does keep her safe from some members of the pack.


I very much enjoyed re-reading this book. I like how Mercy brings Warren and Kyle back together, and stands up for them. How all the big male werewolves want to keep the little human frail Mercy safe and out of the action, and in the end it is only because of her, and her being a walker, that she can save them all. Mercy doesn’t like killing, but sometimes it is necessary, and she is very grateful to Zee for giving her the nifty vampire killing kit.

I know the next book focuses on the Fae, and I look forward to re-reading that one soon.

9 stars.

© 2013 Reviews by Aurian