by Cege Smith
“Theodora used a magical blood bond to bend my free will to her bidding,” Connor said. “As you saw, she then used that to force me to testify against you in front of the council. I was able to break free while being transported back to the dungeons.”
“Wait,” Angeline said, holding up her hand. “In order to create a blood bond, I’m assuming that you would have had to feed on someone.”
Connor looked away from her. “Yes.”
“I thought that after what happened in Brebackerin that you were not going to feed on anyone again,” Angeline replied. Although she kept her tone even, she felt a wave of frustration building inside of her.
Connor’s jaw tightened. “I cannot protect you if I am not at full strength. I had no idea where you were or if you were in trouble. Theodora showed me the future if I somehow managed to achieve my quest to become human again. I would be weak and vulnerable. My body would age to my human age and I would die. I wouldn’t be able to protect you the way that I can now. She offered me a choice, and I choose to remain the way that I am now.”
Angeline was stunned. “You gave up your chance at a cure…for me?”
Connor’s head dropped then. All the anger and frustration that she felt for him moments before dissipated. She had grown up with men constantly around her willing to die for her. But this was different. Connor was different. The lengths that he was willing to go, and what he was willing to sacrifice for her was humbling.
“I have told you before, Majesty. I would do anything for you.”
His words brought her back fully into the present. She leaned across the small space separating them and rested her hand on his knee. Finally, his eyes met hers again.
“I am so sorry that you have been denied a peaceful exit from this world,” she whispered. “Perhaps you would have been better off if we had never met.”
He took her hand in his and turned it over so that his fingers caressed her palm. The sensation sent shivers down her spine. For such a simple gesture, it was surprisingly sensual. She knew that she had sworn off Connor completely not more than several hours ago, but just like that, with him in front of her again, she found that she couldn’t resist him.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” he murmured. “You are the only thing that makes this cursed life of mine worth living at all.”
Angeline wanted to stay in that quiet moment. She wanted to do other things with him that had nothing to do with the outside world, and she could tell by the desire flaming in his eyes that he felt the same way. That would have to wait, but she wasn’t sure that was something that she was willing to deny herself forever. If she had learned nothing in her short eighteen years, it was that life passed by quickly and could be gone in an instant. Everyone around her seemed to die. She needed to cling tightly to the ones left who were important to her. The number one name on that list was Connor Radwin.
“How did you break the magical blood bond? I’m assuming that is why you are now immune to Theodora’s magic?” Angeline sensed that this was the part where Connor was particularly uncomfortable sharing his actions.
Connor sighed heavily. “When we were in Caspian’s study, I found a notation about magical blood bonds. I don’t think I would have even known what Theodora had done to me if I hadn’t read it. I induced a blood coma, and through it I was able to destroy the anchor that Theodora was using to control me.”
Angeline blinked. “A blood coma? That sounds dangerous.”
“No more dangerous than continuing to remain under the control of the woman who sentenced me to death,” Connor replied.
“She wouldn’t have killed you,” Angeline said. “You are valuable to her because of what you mean to me.”
Connor’s hands tightened around hers. “I am a liability to you.”
Angeline smiled softly, but then her thoughts turned to her nightmare. “I learned a long time ago that when you are royalty, everyone you care becomes a target. But without those relationships, life would be empty. It’s a risk that I am willing to take a gamble on.”
Connor returned her smile, and she thought how handsome he was when he smiled. It wasn’t an expression that she saw often on his face, and it was nice to know that she had been the one to put it there. “I don’t know what I did to become so fortunate to be counted as one of those people, but I am grateful,” he said.
“I demand fierce loyalty, but it is something I return in kind,” she said, and she meant it. “Tell me more about this blood coma.”
Connor shifted in his seat. “The details are…sensitive.”
Angeline had no doubt about the truth of those words, but her analytical mind was intrigued. She decided that she would look at it with the rational eye of a learner, and leave the judgment of Connor’s actions until a time when their lives returned to some semblance of normal. Unusual times called for unusual actions. At least, that’s what she told herself as she tried to justify what she did to Kallie.
“Connor, you know better than anyone how much information has been lost over the years. I am the queen, but I was a scholar first. There is so much I don’t know that I need to know. I am not some young chit who has never been exposed to the gruesome side of life. Please, continue.”
Connor hesitated, and when he spoke again, his words were soft. “You might not know this as it isn’t something that we speak of often, but a vampire does have natural limits to their feeding. We do experience fullness, not unlike human satiation.”
Angeline nodded to encourage him to continue. It wasn’t something that she knew about vampires, but until recently, she hadn’t even known that vampires still lived. She had centuries to catch up on. She couldn’t have a better expert to guide her through everything that she needed to know than Connor.
Connor began his vampire life as a guard for Alron, the Master of Connor’s coven and the enemy of her ancestor, Alair Robart. But because of Connor’s continued insubordination, he was given a position of lesser visibility as the keeper of the coven’s historical archives. He was a vampire, a warrior, and a librarian all rolled into one.
“In order to bring on a blood coma, you must push beyond the bounds of that satiation. It is nearly impossible to do because your body will resist it. You become slow and clumsy. Your senses are jumbled to the point of near uselessness. Even your fangs; they will refuse to elongate. This is all to avoid consuming too much blood and entering a state that can lead to death.”
She read between the lines. Connor had killed to enter his blood coma, and it wasn’t just one or two of the Clan. It was many. Too many. She forced her mind forward, refusing to focus on the glaring omission of that fact in his statement. Then she made a startling connection.
“You needed someone to feed you,” she said. “If you could not use your fangs, you would have had to have been fed. That is why you turned Marcus.”
“I didn’t know for sure until I attempted it myself. I had a brief note in a book that is older than I am on which to base my assumption. But I was desperate,” Connor said. “Marcus had insider information. As a vampire, he possessed the strength and cunning I needed in someone to watch over me until I emerged from the blood coma.”
“You took a great risk,” Angeline said. “You might have died. Or Marcus might have turned on you.”
“If I didn’t succeed, I was dead already,” Connor said. “I have no doubt that Theodora would have found a way to turn us against each other. Who knows what kind of mischief she would have used me for in the meantime. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I made the decision.”
Angeline cleared her throat, squeezed his hands and then pushed herself to her feet. Reluctantly, she pulled her hands from his grasp, and she moved closer to the fire. In order to think logically, she couldn’t be looking at his handsome face and beautiful green eyes. She could lose herself in them, and it was a distraction she didn’t have time for.
“It appears to have been the right one,” she said slowly. “Once you were in this
coma, what happened then?”
“I destroyed the anchor that bound me to Theodora’s will,” Connor replied.
“The anchor?” Angeline stared into the fire and waited for his response.
“It was a blood bond,” Connor said. “The anchor was the one whose blood I drank that created the bond.”
More death. She didn’t know why she expected anything different. When everything was done in a currency of blood, it seemed the only likely outcome. The blood that ran through her veins bound her to her past and the sins of her ancestors as much as it did to the man sitting behind her who consumed it. He saved her from death by turning her into a monster too.
That thought sparked another question, but this one had nothing to do with Connor’s escape from Theodora’s clutches.
“What of your sire, Connor? You told me that he was someone of great importance in the coven.”
Connor’s eyebrows shot up. He was surprised by the sudden change of topic. “Monroe? He is the Master’s Chief Deputy, which makes him similar to what Malin Baford does for you.”
His tone turned sour as he said Malin’s name. Angeline understood the sentiment, but she didn’t have time to deal with Connor’s jealousy. She was supposed to marry Malin upon her return to Brebackerin as the final event of her Ascension. Everyone, including her father, believed that move would secure her hold on the throne by quieting any unrest over the idea of Altera’s first bloodborn Queen. Aside from the fact that she detested Malin, she wasn’t so sure of that assumption anymore, especially now that she knew Theodora was Malin’s mother. The Clan’s invisible strings of control were threaded into the very tapestry of the Robart lineage. Every stitch she unraveled seemed to reveal a multitude more.
“Where did he come from?” Angeline needed Connor to be focused. Her wraith’s lineage appeared to be equally important as her human one. She knew that Connor was turned when he was just a few months shy of his thirtieth year as a human. He was from Brebackerin originally. But something told her it wasn’t Connor’s background that she needed to dig into, but that of his sire.
“He is one of the surviving originals,” Connor said. She could tell that her line of questioning confused him. “He rose to his current position during the war with Alair Robart. The Master trusts very few, but he trusts Monroe.”
“Was it the Master who turned him? Or was he one of the ones you call a pureblood, like Searon?” Searon was the pureblood son of Alron and Sophia Robart. Angeline had the misfortune of meeting her ‘cousin’ shortly after becoming a wraith.
“I’ve asked him many times that same question, and he refuses to claim either side. Given his natural tendency to be suspicious of those who are turned, I have always assumed he was a pureblood,” Connor said, leaning forward in his chair. “You seem to think that this is important. Why?”
Angeline began to pace in front of the fireplace, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. An idea blossomed in her mind. “You’ve admitted that all along you were different from other vampires. You’ve acted on your free will, despite what your sire wanted you to do.”
“I have been a pain in Monroe’s side since the day he turned me,” Connor admitted. “I’m sure he regrets that decision. He has endured a great deal of embarrassment with the coven and trouble with the Master because of me.”
Angeline thumbed her own chest. “Then there’s me. Everyone who knows what I am has been amazed at the control that I have over my wraith tendencies.” She pointed at the closed door. “You sired Marcus less than a day ago, and you are able to control him and his hunger with words. Everything I’ve ever read said that newborn vampires were voracious feeders and nearly uncontrollable without proper restraints until they were trained.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “Everything you say is true.”
Angeline dropped the obvious question. “Who is Monroe, Connor? Why are those of his bloodline different in behavior than others of your kind?”
Connor stood then and faced her. “Tell me why this is important.”
“I am the One. The Immortal Ones all but confirmed it,” Angeline said. “But I think the reason I am is because of you, and who sired you. We’re missing something, Connor. We need to know where Monroe came from.”
“Monroe is dead,” Connor said. “But there is one other person who could tell us where he came from.”
Angeline’s sense of dread returned. “Who?”
Connor grimaced. “You know who. But I can’t think of any reason why he would tell us, unless he got something out of the deal.”
Angeline forced the butterflies in her stomach to calm. “Maybe not. But perhaps we have some use for the Clan then after all.”
It seemed inevitable that the time was approaching where she would have to meet the vampire Master, Alron.
CHAPTER SIX
Connor didn’t know why he hadn’t made the connection that was so obvious now. He wasn’t sure if Angeline’s revelations made him feel better or worse about his own situation. Never in his hundred years had he considered that it was because of Monroe that he was different. He just always had been.
He had no brothers in the vampire coven. It was well known that Monroe cared little for having vampire children. Until Connor, Monroe hadn’t turned anyone since the Great War. Connor still didn’t understand why he had been the one that Monroe chose.
At the time, it had been two hundred years since the end of the war, and one of the conditions of the peace pact stated that the Master and his kind were to stay on the south side of the Solera valley. For two hundred years, the land and the people who lived there had been decimated until it became the ‘Forgotten Lands’. That was when the Master forbade the creation of any new vampires as there were already too many mouths to feed and not enough ‘cattle’.
Monroe was convinced that if the Robarts caught wind of the coven’s dwindling ranks, they would take the opportunity to try to finish the Master off once and for all. Until that problem was solved, Monroe decided that the Master needed an Honor Guard to protect him.
He and each of his six trusted generals crossed the line into Robart territory to find their prey. Monroe told them to capture strong, proud men who could be trained for combat and would be fiercely loyal. They targeted those with no family to tie them back to their human lives.
It seemed that fate meant for Connor and Monroe to cross paths. The spoiled son of a Brebackerin merchant might not have been Monroe’s first choice to be a vampire warrior, but Connor’s guilt over accidentally killing his father and his destitute appearance seemed to override Monroe’s doubt. Connor had nowhere to go, and no family to go back to after what he had done to his father. In that sense, he was the perfect target.
“Where did you go?” Angeline’s voice brought him back to the present.
Connor ran his fingers through his hair. “Nowhere that I care to stay. Memories that I’d rather forget.”
Angeline’s pale face nodded in agreement. “I know exactly what you mean.”
A knock on the door drew his attention. Connor motioned to Angeline to remain where she was, and he went to the door and put his ear to the hard wood. “What is it?”
“The change of clothes that you requested,” Marcus said.
Connor heard the slight bite of sarcasm underlying Marcus’s words. He opened the door. Dara stood there with an armful of clothing. Connor could see that, in addition to a change of clothes for himself, there also appeared to be a new gown for Angeline. Marcus looked Dara over from head to toe and sniffed the air above her head. Connor heard her heartbeat speed up. He supposed she was wondering how she had gotten such an unlucky assignment as having to take care of the wild vampires and wraith in the Clan’s midst. Any one of them could rip her throat out in a second.
“Thank you, Dara,” Connor said, taking the clothing pile from her. “Her Majesty thanks you as well.”
“The First Seat said that I was to inquire if the Queen needs assistance changing.”
Connor was sure that request included a command to try to find out what was being said inside the room as well. “No, thank you,” he said without further explanation.
“Marcus,” he said, pulling the other man’s attention away from Dara. “I will watch the door while the Queen gets ready. Why don’t you go back to your quarters and change?” It was risky to let Marcus wander the halls by himself, but Connor added a compulsion element to his command that he hoped would hold. “There and back as quick as you can. No detours.”
“Good idea,” Marcus said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
He trotted down the hallway and turned left, heading toward the guards’ barracks.
Connor looked back at Dara. “You may go.”
The woman squeaked an incoherent reply and was gone before he could say anything further. Connor felt Angeline’s presence behind him. He turned and stepped into the room far enough to place the clothes on the table next to the door.
“You can freshen up. I’ll be right outside,” he said. “Knock when you’re done.” She was fingering the fabric of the heavy gown with a sigh as he exited.
Leaning back against the cold wall next to the door, Connor crossed his arms and settled in. Inevitably, his thoughts turned back to another time when he had assumed just such a position for a similar reason.
Perhaps it was because Monroe was his sire, but Connor immediately received the best assignments in his new role as the Master’s Honor Guard. He heard the whispers from others who were born into the vampire fold with him. It seemed to him that they all embraced their new life with a kind of joyful abandon. The Honor Guard had instant prestige in the coven, and that meant better quarters and favored status for feeding only after the Master and the elder coven advisors. For most of them, they had been drifters and criminals before being turned. Becoming a vampire was the best thing that ever happened to them.